There is a spark of optimism that a private trip to Port-of-Spain by St Lucia’s Prime Minister Phillip Pierre, which morphed into a mini-summit with his Trinidad and Tobago counterpart, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, might prove a catalyst to cooling the existential crisis hanging over the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Nothing has been publicly reported about what the leaders said about Trinidad and Tobago’s claim that the process used by CARICOM’s heads of government – in the absence of Ms Persad-Bissessar – to appoint Karla Barnett to a second term as the community’s secretary general. But, in addition to declarations about promoting bilateral relations, posting on Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s social media accounts said she and Mr Pierre “exchanged views on opportunities for progress within CARICOM”.
Significantly, too, Ms Persad-Bissessar was quoted as extending “her best wishes to Prime Minister Pierre on his upcoming chairmanship of CARICOM”, which begins on July 1. That may be a signal that she has begun to look past the current chairman, the Kitts and Nevis prime minister, Dr Terrance Drew.
Mr Pierre’s own postings said he and Ms Persad-Bissessar exchanged views on “strengthening regional integration and collective resilience in an increasingly complex global environment”.
In essence, the tone, if not upbeat, was positive. This is significant, since Mr Pierre will host the next regular CARICOM Summit in July, to which he has been stressing the importance of full attendance. He is likely to have reinforced that message to Ms Persad-Bissessar – and that she should remain in St Lucia until the summit’s end, attending all the sessions, including leaders’ retreats.
It was the Trinidad and Tobago PM’s absence from a retreat at the February summit in St Kitts and Nevis that plunged CARICOM from tense relations over geopolitical to full-blown crisis.
Returning to power a year ago after a decade in opposition, Ms Persad-Bissessar threw her lot fully in with Donald Trump’s policies in the Caribbean and belittled CARICOM’s effort to hew something of an independent line. When Mr Trump ordered the US military to blow up suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea, Ms Persad-Bissessar cheered him on. She ridiculed CARICOM’s assertion of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, and trolled Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica when the US punished them over its dissatisfaction with the citizenship-by-invitation schemes. Trinidad and Tobago also allowed its territory to be used as a listening post for America’s Caribbean operations, including the rendition of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.
Things went further south over the Barnett affair. The secretary general’s current term ends in August. However, weeks after the St Kitts summit, Dr Drew announced that she had been appointed by the heads of government in February with the “required majority”.
Trinidad and Tobago insists that the process of the appointment was irregular, arguing that its foreign minister, Sean Sobers, was disinvited from the retreat at which the decision was taken, although Mr Sobers had indicated his likely absence, for fear of becoming seasick in a boat crossing to the session.
Port-of-Spain has said it will not recognise Dr Barnett, with whom Ms Persad-Bissessar has grievances, after August.
In the face of these contentions, Prime Minister Pierre’s seeming positive engagement with Ms Persad-Bissessar is hopefully a toehold towards greater traction in resolving CARICOM’s crisis.
There are others in CARICOM who share many of Ms Persad-Bissessar’s views, keen on not to be perceived of upsetting Mr Trump and attempting to negotiate bilaterally with Washington. The Trinidad and Tobago prime minister is, however, an outlier in her embrace of Mr Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine.
There are reasons, though, why she might recalibrate her posture towards CARICOM. The community, to which it sells over US$1 billion annually, is Trinidad and Tobago’s largest market for its non-oil exports, accounting for thousands of manufacturing jobs. With talk of boycotts in some CARICOM countries, business leaders in Port-of-Spain have counselled caution.
On the broader geopolitical front, domestic analysts have also warned about the dangers of tethering Trinidad and Tobago too tightly to the mercurial Donald Trump, whose disruption of the international order over the past 16 months has largely removed the limited insulation available to small countries like those of CARICOM.
In the uncertain reshaping of the global order, small and weak countries, acting on their own, are especially vulnerable. Even a group like CARICOM lacks the size and strength to protect their interests. Nonetheless, conglomeration amplifies their voice in international relations and provides a basis for expanding alliances, including with countries of the Global South.
Should Ms Persad-Bissessar, or any other CARICOM leader, question the logic of partnership, they need only ask Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister. At the annual Davos conference in January, Mr Carney, faced with threats from the United States, called for a partnership between “middle powers” like Canada for dealing with superpowers. If the middle were not at the table, he warned, they would find themselves “on the menu”.
Just this week, Mr Carney was in Yerevan, Armenia, for a summit of the European Political Community in furtherance of his mission to build alliances with middle powers.
There was no inevitability, he argued, in submitting to a “more transactional insular world”. We agree.
