Editorial | The summit’s agenda

Geopolitical realities render Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, the most critical foreign attendee at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government Conference, which opened in St. Kitts and Nevis on Tuesday.

But from a longer-term perspective, the other invitees, especially political officials from the foreign ministries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), could represent pivotal development for the region, if it indeed signals an effort by the community to strategically expand its global outreach in the face of the irreversible rupture of the existing international order initiated by Donald Trump.

But what ultimately emerges from Basseterre with respect to the region’s geopolitical posture, including the frankness of the discussion with Mr Rubio, will depend significantly on how well they have repaired recent rents in intra-CARICOM relations. The greatest potential obstacle to regional cohesion in this regard is Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago. She has not only broken with, but berated CARICOM colleagues for their criticisms of some of the US’s initiatives in the Caribbean.

Hopefully, some of America’s more recent actions – in the Caribbean and globally – have cooled Ms Persad-Bissessar’s ardour for President Trump and made her more receptive to coordinated regional strategies.

TALKING HONESTLY

The most immediate test is how the leaders approach their talks with Mr Rubio and what they say to the secretary of state about Cuba in the context of US-CARICOM relations.

Even as they express CARICOM’s wish – as a collective and as individual states – for continued strong relations with the United States, they must say truthfully that the recent US oil blockade of Cuba, on top of America’s long-standing economic embargo of the Caribbean island, is a ruinous act against ordinary Cuban citizens, many of whom will die from its effects. Not only should the blockade have no moral place as a political strategy, Mr Rubio should be reminded that in all likelihood it is a breach of international humanitarian law.

Talking honestly with friends should not derogate from what the Americans say is the central reason for Mr Rubio’s presence at the summit: advancing shared priorities, including strengthening regional security; deepening cooperation to combat illegal immigration and illicit trafficking; and promoting economic growth, health, and energy security across the Caribbean.

“During his visit, the secretary will reaffirm the United States’ commitment to working with CARICOM member states to enhance stability and prosperity in our hemisphere,” the State Department’s deputy spokesman, Tommy Pigott, said in a statement.

POLICY QUESTIONS

Yet, behind these seemingly benign and positive aspirations lurk troublesome policy questions.

On the question of health, for instance, many Caribbean health systems rely on the presence of Cuban doctors and nurses to stay afloat. Yet the US has been squeezing regional governments to radically overhaul, or end, on the pain of sanctions, the arrangements under which, for decades, they have engaged Cuban health professionals.

The CARICOM is also keen to combat the flow of guns into the region which threatens domestic security, as well as the use of regional territories as transshipment points for narcotics, especially cocaine, heading to North America and Europe. Nonetheless, except for the Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, the community’s leaders have been uneasy with President Trump’s use of the US military to blow up alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea, bypassing the criminal judicial process. They have also been concerned about US forces entering Venezuela for the capture and rendition of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, for alleged drug running.

These issues have implications for sustaining CARICOM’s declaration of the Caribbean as a zone of peace.

DEEPER ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIPSAdditionally, Mr Trump’s aggressive reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine of US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere has come with a demand for the region’s economic disengagement from China, which has been the Caribbean’s major supplier of development capital in recent decades. Essentially, this is a return to 19th- and 20th-century great power politics, with explicit, though yet imprecise, promises of rewards for friends.

Meanwhile, in the year that he has been in office, Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs has undermined supply chains and upended the certainties of the global system that has been in place since the end of the Second World War. Small countries, including those that comprise CARICOM, are, in the process, being deprived of the limited insulation they enjoyed in global relations. The invitation now is to shelter exclusively under a US umbrella.

In this new uncertain environment, it makes sense that even as it maintains old friendships, CARICOM explores new ones, as well as services those that it has allowed to lie fallow.

It is against that backdrop that this newspaper assesses the potential value of the presence at the summit of the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs and member of the country’s Council of Ministers, Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, and his UAE counterpart, Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are wealthy countries in the largely wealthy Gulf region, where there is the potential for trade and investment capital. In other words, the presence of these officials in Basseterre could be a precursor to deeper economic partnerships between CARICOM and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and perhaps a bridge to the Gulf Cooperation Council.