Chair­man of Cari­com, Prime Min­is­ter of Do­mini­ca Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, iden­ti­fied as a de­ci­sion of the Port-of-Spain Sum­mit to con­tem­plate the free move­ment of hu­man cap­i­tal across the re­gion and to “take a deep­er po­si­tion on this by March 2024”, at the in­ter­s­es­sion­al of the in­te­gra­tion move­ment.

Con­trast such a neb­u­lous promise to the de­ci­sion an­nounced at the very sum­mit by the vis­it­ing US Sec­re­tary of State, Antony Blinken, that his Gov­ern­ment has ap­point­ed “a co-or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearms Pros­e­cu­tion”, al­lo­cat­ed $5.5 mil­lion for food in­se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion, com­mit to as­sist­ing Haiti and to in­ves­ti­gate the de-risk­ing of Caribbean banks in the Unit­ed States.

What is more, the Cari­com as­pi­ra­tion comes 34 years af­ter the 1989 es­tab­lish­ment of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my, with the free move­ment of cap­i­tal and labour be­ing a foun­da­tion pil­lar to al­low eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion to spread and deep­en.

All the present Cari­com chair­man could say to­day is still far away from tak­ing de­fin­i­tive ac­tion to ful­ly im­ple­ment the Grand Anse De­c­la­ra­tion. If the truth be told, he, his con­tem­po­raries and their pre­de­ces­sors have been mak­ing sim­i­lar fail­ing promis­es year-af­ter-year to, for in­stance, bring to­geth­er the cap­i­tal of T&T, now the en­er­gy re­sources of Guyana and Suri­name, the busi­ness and man­age­ment ca­pac­i­ty of Ja­maica and the peo­ple pow­er and ex­per­tise of OECS ter­ri­to­ries to en­hance de­vel­op­ment amongst mem­ber states.

Sure, a few cat­e­gories of pro­fes­sion­als have been mov­ing across the re­gion; but not the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the de­ci­sion to al­low all cat­e­gories of Cari­com na­tion­als to move where they are need­ed to fos­ter eco­nom­ic growth, so­cial de­vel­op­ment and co­he­sion.

Com­pare that with the de­ci­sion of the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice to ap­point an of­fi­cial to pros­e­cute crime to ap­pre­ci­ate ac­tion as op­posed to blur­ry con­tem­pla­tion.

With­out a doubt, much has been ac­com­plished in the 50 years of the in­te­gra­tion move­ment. How­ev­er, this crit­i­cal CSME covenant to com­bine the hu­man and phys­i­cal re­sources of mem­ber states to pro­duce goods and ser­vices to re­place im­ports and ex­port is far from be­ing ac­com­plished.

It is, there­fore, Cari­com chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Sker­rit, pal­pa­bly in­suf­fi­cient and with­out com­pelling au­thor­i­ty for you and your col­leagues to ut­ter vague plat­i­tudes of com­mit­ment to eco­nom­ic and so­cial in­te­gra­tion while you is­sue very de­lib­er­ate and spe­cif­ic de­mands on oth­er na­tions.

“Re­move sanc­tions on Venezuela and lift the 60-year old block­ade of trade against Cu­ba,” both very de­lib­er­ate com­mands. A first prin­ci­ple step by an in­di­vid­ual, a coun­try and a re­gion is to ful­fil promis­es at home be­fore you ask favours of oth­ers.

A Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty alive, ac­tive and hav­ing an in­te­gra­tion move­ment that has and con­tin­ues to cre­ate dy­nam­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment across the re­gion in the man­ner ad­vo­cat­ed and planned for by its founders, will sure­ly then have the moral au­thor­i­ty to pe­ti­tion oth­er na­tions to take ac­tion.

More­over, a Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty func­tion­ing in the man­ner planned for by its “Wise Men” will be­come a far more at­trac­tive re­gion be­yond look­ing for hand­outs and favours from the US to one which can en­gage in rec­i­p­ro­cal trad­ing align­ments with the “big broth­er” from the North and as a jump­ing-off point to vig­or­ous trad­ing with the rest of the Hemi­sphere and the world.