US/Caribbean%20Relations%20

1
US/Caribbean Relations Today and Tomorrow

• Throughout history, the political, economic and
  diplomatic relationships between the USA and
  various Caribbean states have been marked by long
  periods of benign neglect and sharp periods of
  intervention and direct ostracism.

2

• One scholar likened the relationship to that of a
  fire brigade coming in every now and then to put
  out fires with feverish activity then leaving
  with essentially un-repaired ruins behind. This
  view, while having a fair degree of validity
  ignores or underplays many positive aspects of
  the relationship, beyond the military and
  strategic interventions.

3

• From the US perspective, its top decision makers,
  if and when they consider the Caribbean, find it
  hard to imagine why there is not instantaneity in
  Caribbean support for several US policies given
  the presumed quiet but good relationships with
  their close neighbours in the Caribbean area.

4

• The US has admitted many Caribbean citizens to
  her shores, and has given them advanced
  education, jobs, residency and citizenships. US
  citizens, in return, freely visit the region with
  nothing more than a passport in the various
  tourism centers, putting much-needed US dollars
  in several economies.

5

• US investors have been active in a variety of
  economic sectors, and so too US government funds
  have been transmitted for developmental purposes.
  Through the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and
  World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements,
  Caribbean producers have nearly full access to
  the US markets.

6

• Hopefully, through the Free Trade Area of the
  Americas (FTAA) negotiations, an agreement may be
  reached in this Hemisphere will make the USA
  market more accessible (especially in textiles,
  agricultural products, etc.) to Caribbean
  suppliers.

7

• Hopefully, through the Free Trade Area of the
  Americas (FTAA) negotiations an agreement may be
  reached in this Hemisphere will make the USA
  market more accessible (especially in textiles,
  agricultural products, etc.) to Caribbean
  suppliers.

8

• From the Caribbean perspective it is argued that
  because we are small, weak and vulnerable, this
  does not mean that we should not be protective of
  the right to self-determination, sovereignty, and
  flexibility in external relations according to
  needs for self-sustaining growth and cultural
  integrity.

9

• Therefore, there could not be automaticity in
  support for US policies towards, for examples,
  the Iraq invasion, Cubas persisting ostracism,
  and several international agreements of interest
  to weaker states.

10

• The Caribbean concedes the positive aspects of
  the relationship but not, within them, the
  self-regarding, non-altruistic, quid pro quo,
  attitudes of the US. There is hardly room for
  the US to display an attitude of noblesse oblige.
  

11

• The very expectation of instantaneity of support
  for all the major US policies illustrates these
  features.

12

• We are vulnerable states along many dimensions of
  vulnerability, and our sovereignty is much more
  juridical than de facto but we do deeply believe
  in the right of micro states to exist and
  therefore we strongly support and participate in
  multinational institutions and treaties which
  seek to order the world along lines of justice,
  equity, fairness, and are concerned with
  equitable shares of the worlds resources.

13

• By the same token, we become exceedingly
  uncomprehending when the worlds richest
  democratic state, so often, in practice, ignores
  or bypasses these processes. And, remember, it
  is not that many of these global institutions and
  processes are democratically controlled,
  transparent and participatory! The Security
  Council of the UN is not. The WTO is not. The
  IMF and the World Bank are not, and so on.

14

• Nevertheless, even as these institutions and
  processes are, they are infinitely preferable to
  a situation in which powerful countries
  exclusively decide and dominate, and then seek
  for automatic support from the previously
  ignored.

15

• Something is fundamentally wrong with this
  expectation. Unless the US is claiming sainthood
  and has a direct line to perfect truth that
  others do not have, all it should reasonably
  expect is critical support on several important
  global issues. The Caribbean has been responding
  positively as it is able, consistent with its
  dignity.

16
Current Caribbean/USA Relations

• Current relations with the USA are conditioned by
  a normally favourable attitude of Caribbean
  peoples to US materialist culture, its reflexive
  democratic impulses, and by the large Caribbean
  population living there. However, for the
  official and intellectual classes, the Caribbean
  is deeply worried by the new radical foreign
  policy doctrine of the US government.

17

• This is the first-strike doctrine which basically
  ignores international law, dismisses the precepts
  and procedures of collective security established
  by the UN Charter, and establishes the USA as the
  global enforcer (acting together as police
  persons, judge and jury, and executioner).

18

• Small states are bound to be disturbed by this
  development, even if we could trust the US to be
  right all the time, because this gives an excuse
  for extra-territorial operations by other nations
  and non-state actors!

19

• The Caribbean, it must be said, is equally
  disturbed by the dangerous threats facing us and
  the world the global reach of terrorists the
  pandemic of HIV/AIDs the spread of weapons of
  mass destruction unprecedented global
  environmental crises and a global economy and
  related governance system generating greater
  instability and inequality, as well as a global
  financial system which is equally deleterious.

20

• US unilateralism, supremacy and exceptionalism,
  most certainly, even with its military, economic
  and technological power, will not, without world
  states participation and contribution be able to
  address these issues successfully, alone.

21

• This is why it is disturbing to Caribbean nations
  that on a number of issues recently the US
  Government has been back-tracking on commitments,
  refusing to sign on to agreements, and going its
  own way on several others.

22

• Let us list some of these. The US has rejected
  global scientific consensus and withdrawn from
  efforts to curb global warming. For us in the
  Caribbean global warming is absolutely serious.
  One major consequence is sea level rise. In a
  few short years our reefs and our beaches could
  be totally destroyed and so would the on-land
  tourism and our off-shore fisheries industry.

23

• The renunciation of the US signature on the
  Treaty to create an International Criminal Court
  and the vigorous campaign to exempt all US
  personnel from its jurisdiction, even threatening
  to veto UN peacekeeping operations if its wishes
  were not attained, struck a major blow to
  multilateralism and an orderly world in which
  powerful countries would also respect and honour
  such obligations.

24

• Small states like ours need such international
  institutions if we are to achieve a measure of
  justice not dependent on the largesse and mercy
  of powerful countries.

25

• The US agreed to the Test Ban treaty while
  declaring an intention to test new nuclear
  weapons and refusing, itself, to rule out first
  strike against non-nuclear nations. Caribbean
  countries, especially after the Cuban Missile
  crisis, will never be in the nuclear race and so,
  perhaps, should not bother about these issues
  except to see a systematic destruction of
  existing ones.

26

• However, it is the message about exceptionalism
  (international rules and treaties, yes but they
  do not apply to the USA the self-appointed
  guardian of freedom), that bothers us and the
  consequential delegitimisation of rules and
  treaties.

27

• The USA has not come on board to mobilize a
  global offensive against the spread of HIV/AIDS,
  although it must be said that President Bush
  recently announced the allocation of major sums
  of money for this fight. Nevertheless, the
  perception is that its dominant concern is in
  privileging the financial interests of
  pharmaceutical companies over the need for
  affordable life-saving medicines.

28

• Caribbean women and their families were not
  pleased when the US suspended its support for the
  Family Planning programme undertaken by the UN
  and has so far refused to support the Convention
  on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination
  Against Women (CEDAW). This suggests a weaker
  commitment to social development issues.

29

• It is still a major concern that the US
  undermined the Oslo peace process, condoned the
  Israeli re-occupation of Palestinian territory,
  and rejected UN Security Council resolutions,
  supported by previous US administrations that
  provide a framework for conflict resolution
  containing strict security guarantees for both
  the Israelis and the Palestinians.

30

• These are just some of the instances which caused
  Caribbean states to wonder about the USAs
  commitment to global institutions and processes
  and dampened any proclivity which may have
  existed to automatically support US policies as
  they manifest

31

• There were other more direct issues such as the
  Shiprider dispute, US policy on Off-shore
  financial institutions in the Caribbean, US
  selectivity in determining which Caribbean Heads
  to invite to meetings with the President.

32

• There are issues on the trade in small arms which
  has fuelled an upsurge of murders and crime in
  the Caribbean aligned to the Illegal
  transshipment of Drugs interdiction policy and
  the US reaction to countries which were deemed as
  not having done enough to stem the flow into the
  USA.

33

• Many Caribbean Governments saw these
  returnees/deportees with their sophisticated
  weaponry as responsible for a major upsurge in
  murders and other criminal activity in several
  countries. The security forces in the region
  have not been able to contain this massive
  upsurge in criminal activity. This is probably
  the number one concern in the Region now!

34

• The banana issue where the USA supported the
  position of its multinationals which dominate the
  food industry globally over Caribbean producers
  continuation in the business through special
  market privileges with the European Union and for
  the less than 6 per cent of the global share of
  the market that the Caribbean had, was, and still
  is, a source of great irritation for Caribbean
  banana producing countries.

35

• These and others are examples of irritants,
  sometimes of major proportions, which have led to
  an extremely wary attitude of Caribbean leaders
  to the US President and official agencies. The
  transshipment of nuclear wastes through the
  Caribbean also caused diplomatic difficulties.

36

• In response to these concerns, the US has
  increased military assistance to the region,
  especially through training, joint military and
  security exercises.

37

• The FTAA, still some way off for realization, is
  the arena within which the US hopes to
  incorporate the entire Latin America and
  Caribbean regions into a kind of prosperity zone.
  This has been long in the making but there are
  serious splits in conceptualisation of the final
  product, to be hopefully completed in 2,005.
  This hope about completion time is looking
  bleaker even after the outcome of the meeting in
  Miami this week.

38

• Let us examine this a bit more because the future
  relations with the USA will be heavily coloured
  by the WTO and FTAA negotiations. There
  continues to be a titanic struggle within the WTO
  by member countries on a variety of issues.

39

• The scuttling of the negotiation process at
  Seattle, the unsatisfactory outturn at Doha and
  blatant powerful country manipulation of weaker
  states along with the deadlock at CANCUN suggest
  that countries, that are not G7, have to come
  together on selected issues and hold firm, in
  order to have influence. Out of this
  power-play action may come the transparency,
  equity and inclusiveness that weaker economies
  would wish to see.

40

• It did not take long for Caribbean states to
  discover that even apparent gains at Doha re
  better prices for HIV/AIDs pharmaceuticals turned
  out to be more apparent than real. So too was
  the offer of sufficient technical assistance to
  governments to take adequate part in subsequent
  post Doha activities.

41

• Attitudes of resistance were manifested in the
  formation of two new groupings, for the Cancun
  Ministerial meeting, with several Caribbean
  countries participation, which may be effective
  in future WTO negotiations.

42

• They are the group of 21 countries chaired by
  Brazil wanting effective treatment of
  agricultural subsidies and the group of 23,
  chaired by Indonesia (formed an alliance for
  Strategic Products (SP) and Special Safeguard
  Mechanism (SSM) to fight for the interests of
  "small vulnerable resource-poor farmers from
  developing countries" through strong SP and SSM
  mechanisms in the Cancun outcome on agriculture.

43

• Caribbean countries were united in what they
  wanted out of the WTO and never deviated at
  Cancun. This ability to hold a line needs to
  be converted into mutually beneficial outcomes
  for all. At least, many weaker and middle power
  states recognized that there is hope for a
  significantly improved governance system within
  the WTO. On these issues, the Caribbean came up
  directly against key issues for the USA and the
  European Union.

44

• The continuing struggles over implementation
  issues for developing countries and over not
  proceeding with the Singapore issues before
  settling these suggest that rich countries are
  not prepared to act in good faith unless
  pressured into fair and equitable actions.

45

• These issues have been continuously downgraded
  and sidelined by powerful countries in the WTO.
  Caribbean complaints on implementation issues
  relate to the non-realisation of anticipated
  benefits (as in textiles and agriculture),
  imbalances and asymmetries to be corrected
  (TRIPS, subsidies, etc.) and the non-operational
  and non-binding provisions (to be made
  operational).

46

• In all of these issues, the US approach to
  Caribbean needs seemed unfeeling and
  unsympathetic.

47

• For the Caribbean, achieving fairness and equity
  in the global tourism industry is really of vital
  importance. The UN Commission on Sustainable
  Development organized a dialogue in April 2002
  (7th Session) that brought together national and
  local governments, the tourism industry, trade
  unions and activist groups and considered how to
  make tourism sustainable all over the world.

48

• The concern arose because tourism developers,
  usually foreign, and tourists with lots of money
  to spend, believe they are capable of managing
  and conserving land and natural resources and in
  cooperation with the tourist industry can
  properly manage and conserve 'nature' under a
  national eco-tourism plan.

49

• What was especially important for the
  Caribbean,arising out of this discussion, was the
  strong commitment to the democratic control of
  the industry. The UN General Assembly (UNGA)
  adopted a resolution on 'Sustainable Tourism' as
  part of its Programme for the further
  implementation of Agenda 21 -- the action
  programme adopted at the Rio Earth Summit.

50

• This resolution acknowledges the need to consider
  further the importance of tourism in the context
  of Agenda 21. Among other things, it states
• For sustainable patterns of consumption and
  production in the tourism sector, it is essential
  to strengthen national policy development and
  enhance capacity in the areas of physical
  planning, impact assessment, and the use of
  economic and regulatory instruments, as well as
  in the areas of information, education and
  marketing.

51

• The problem is that the current structure of
  international business and trade is hostile to
  benefit sharing. Travel and tourism have emerged
  as one of the world's most centralised and
  competitive industries. Many markets for
  services are dominated by a few large firms from
  developed countries.

52

• As a result, in most service sectors, the larger
  operators face little effective competition as
  the size of the next tier of competitors is so
  small.  For example, 80 per cent of the market in
  tourism belongs to Thomson, Airtours, First
  Choice and Thomas Cook. 

53

• Service providers from developing countries are
  mainly small- and medium-sized, and they face
  competition from large service multinationals
  with massive financial strength, access to the
  latest technology, worldwide networks and a
  sophisticated information technology
  infrastructure.

54

• Caribbean perception is that the USA favours the
  interests of the few transnational corporations
  which dominate the industry over the weaker
  players interest in equitable benefit sharing

55

• The trend in mergers and acquisitions and
  strategic alliances has exacerbated this
  concentration. UNCTAD studies on health, tourism,
  air transport and construction have highlighted
  the possible anti-competitive impact of these new
  business techniques. For example, vertical
  integration between tour operators and travel
  agents creates considerable market power that
  puts competitors at a disadvantage. 

56

• The structure of distribution channels and
  information networks in several service sectors
  has also shut out competition.  For example, in
  tourism and air transport, strategic global
  alliances and global distribution systems have
  restricted competition and present major barriers
  to market entry by developing countries (UNCTAD
  studies on health, tourism, air transport and
  construction  6-8).

57

• The striking paradox is that the institutions for
  liberal trade in tourism and travel services are
  themselves illiberal! These transnational
  corporations have increasingly pressured
  governments around the world to liberalise trade
  and investment in services and are likely to
  benefit tremendously from the General Agreement
  on Trade in Services (GATS).

58

• Under GATS an objective is to abolish
  restrictions on foreign ownership and other
  measures which have so far protected the services
  sector in individual countries. Already, in the
  hotel sector, GATS facilitates franchising,
  management contracts and licensing.

59

• Under national treatment rules, foreign tourism
  companies will be entitled to the same benefits
  as local companies, in addition to being allowed
  to move staff across borders at will, open branch
  offices in foreign countries, and make
  international payments without restrictive
  regulations.

60

• Whatever remaining national control Caribbean
  countries may envisage, signing on to GATS, as is
  and is to be, means ceding all remaining national
  powers of regulation.

61

• Furthermore, foreign investment is increasingly
  being deregulated under the GATT/WTO system.
  Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) will
  ensure that foreign companies will no longer be
  obliged to use local input.

62

• It is also true that although the attempt by the
  Organisation for Cooperation and Development
  (OECD) to establish a Multilateral Agreement on
  Investment (MAI) was stalled, efforts to
  resuscitate the process continue. The agreement
  would have included unrestricted entry and
  establishment of foreign firms, national
  treatment, automatic repatriation of profits,
  technology transfer, etc.

63

• The World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC) has
  presented its Millennium Vision on travel and
  tourism. This vision includes the following key
  areas
•          Get governments to accept travel and
  tourism as a strategic economic development and
  employment priority

64

• Move towards open and competitive markets by
  supporting the implementation of GATS, liberalise
  air transport and deregulate telecommunications
  in international markets and
•          Eliminate barriers to tourism growth,
  which involves the expansion and improvement of
  infrastructure -- e.g. the increase of airport
  capacity, construction and modernisation of
  airports, roads and tourist facilities.

65

• Presumably, bi- and multilateral aid agencies
  will begin transferring their development
  resources into these activities, away from other
  developmental activities since the financial
  pool, in real terms, has sharply declined.

66

• Caribbean concerns are manifold. Among them is
  the high likelihood of loss of independence by
  scores of small and medium size enterprises,
  including hotels and tour operators, because most
  Caribbean enterprises will hardly be able to
  compete with foreign companies.

67

• Already, only a small portion of tourism revenues
  reaches the Caribbean because of the high foreign
  exchange leakages. It seems quite obvious that
  the balance sheet may even worsen because the
  profits and other income repatriated by foreign
  companies are likely to grow larger than the
  inflow of capital.

68

• For these two reasons tourism will not bring
  wealth, progress, social achievements and
  improved environmental standards heralded for it
  to the Caribbean in the now enveloping global
  liberalization processes. In all of these
  concerns not one iota of support has been
  expressed by the USA, as it was also the case on
  the banana issue.

69

• Furthermore, the resolution calls for
  participation of all concerned parties in policy
  development and implementation of sustainable
  tourism programmes.

70

• The drive for this comes from two main sources
• 1.      countries such as Jamaica, facing serious
  debt burdens and worsening trade terms, turn to
  tourism promotion in order to obtain foreign
  exchange and investment, and

71

• 2. from leading international agencies such as
  the World Bank, United Nations agencies and
  business organisations (like the World Travel
  Tourism Council (WTTC) which hope to make tourism
  a truly global but sustainable industry.

72

• A similar process has taken shape in relation to
  the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
  negotiations. On the one hand, there is a vision
  of the FTAA, led by the USA, which anticipates an
  agreement to be completed by 2005, which is
  comprehensive and multilateral based on
  completely free trade by each and every partner
  country. This is the view of 13 countries.

73

• This all inclusive approach, whether the country
  is weak or strong economically or otherwise would
  mean even greater freedom for non-Caribbean
  corporations to rise above national concerns and
  regulation for non-Caribbean corporations to
  freely source agricultural products, furniture
  and building materials, for examples, from
  outside Jamaica and the region and for
  value-chain issues in most goods and services not
  to be seriously considered.

74

• Maybe, one day, apart from some Caribbean
  businesses, which have wisely spread out their
  operations into and outside the region, the rest
  of the Caribbean operations, if they survive the
  openness, may gain the strength to take on the
  multinational corporations.

75

• To be sure, there will be still several niche
  markets possibilities, especially in ancillary
  services. In nearly all issues, the USA has
  been firm in support of its US based
  multinational corporations, in spite of
  deleterious social, economic, environmental and
  political fallouts in Caribbean countries.

76

• The other 20 countries, led by Brazil, envision a
  more realistic process in which member states
  seek to achieve conciliation re their offensive
  interests and balance these against defensive
  interests. Indeed, this perspective is real in
  the sense that many of the negotiating committees
  are deadlocked and there is need for more
  conciliatory attitudes to prevail.

77

• Caribbean countries are, understandably,
  reluctant to pursue a multilateral agreement
  within a single undertaking reluctant to pursue
  an ambitious and comprehensive negotiating agenda
  on all issues by 2005 are anxious for tourism
  issues to achieve special treatment and are
  reluctant to include labour and environment
  issues in the negotiations.

78

• On all these issues, the US and its allies are
  most aggressive in denying their primary
  importance for small and developing states.

79

• Caribbean countries are favouring an approach
  which pursues flexibility in negotiating at
  bilateral or multilateral levels without obliging
  countries each country to the same commitment
  favour a reduction or reshaping of the
  negotiating agenda support compensations
  mechanisms to balance out socio-economic
  differences, as well as would wish to negotiate
  agricultural subsidies in the interest of food
  security.

80

• Nevertheless, after conciliatory dialogue with
  the United States Trade Representative (USTR),
  Robert Zoellick, in 2002, a compromise was
  reached at the meeting of the FTAA Trade
  Negotiating Committee in Santo Domingo that
  allows CARICOM to start negotiations on the basis
  of higher tariffs for a limited number of
  agricultural products, still to be defined.

81

• Doubtful as it stands, this may nonetheless prove
  to be a prelude (?) to the achievement of a
  comprehensive package of special and differential
  treatment for the smaller economies in the FTAA.

82

• The US, on the other hand is puzzled by the
  Caribbean support for Cubas participation in the
  OAS and in discussions on the FTAA, which
  explicitly excludes Cuba. The Caribbean has also
  incorporated Cuba in some of its councils and has
  even allowed investment in and travel to Cuba.
  Caribbean relationship with Cuba has, for a long
  time, been a major irritant to the USA.

83

• The Caribbean Basin Initiative was a President
  Reagan initiative for the entire region.
  However, it delivered far less than was expected.
  The US probably over-estimated what could have
  been accomplished through the CBI, assuming that
  much more was intended.

84

• The reduction of some Caribbean debt for
  environmental action was a positive action on the
  part of the US but not the downscaling of USAID
  offices and financial and technical aid to the
  region, although critical interventions still
  continue through this source in the Region.

85

• The problem which the Caribbean has, in an
  overall sense, is the benign neglect for
  countries which desire a much more productive
  relationship with the US in all dimensions of
  inter-state relationships.

86
The Future of US/Caribbean Relationship

• In many ways the Caribbean has lost its strategic
  and military importance to the USA. Only Cuba,
  and maybe, in a different way, Haiti, remain of
  selective interests in these two aspects. The US
  actually believes that the FTAA will be equally
  beneficial for all countries in the region and
  that the best thing they could do is to
  completely liberalise trade and access in all
  aspects of economic activity.

87

• With this deep belief, notwithstanding who is the
  President, the Caribbean will have to continue to
  insist on flexibility in its participation in
  trading and economic groupings, strengthen
  significantly the regional integration movement
  and even reach for a form of political union as
  both a protective mechanism and as a way of
  acquiring the ability to collectively compete in
  open markets.

88

• The Caribbean countries cannot withdraw from
  participation in multilateral trading
  arrangements so they have to strive with all
  their might to improve the quality and
  responsiveness of the governance structures in
  these global and regional organizations.

89

• The Caribbean needs rules based systems
  guaranteed by international collective action
  which can induce reasonable constraints from
  highly exploitative companies and countries
  operating at the global level.

90

• It is not at all certain, if deadlocks become a
  feature of global trade, economic and financial
  negotiations, that rich countries will still
  support multilateralism. They may actually
  retreat back into national protectionism and
  bilateral and regional clout.

91

• Either of these possibilities would deny the weak
  states of the Caribbean in the international
  system an assurance of equity and fairness.

92

• May good sense prevail because there is much that
  can be mutually beneficial to the USA and the
  Caribbean alike in improving the governance of
  global and regional institutions and ensuring
  adherence to rule rather than might.

93

• The End
• Neville C. Duncan
• 100204