Home  Editorials What’s in store for the Caribbean?
|
What’s in store for the Caribbean? |
|
|
|
|
Monday, 17 November 2008 |
The Caribbean celebrated when Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on November 4. Prior to the elections, a survey undertaken in Jamaica showed that 94 percent of Jamaicans favored an Obama victory, and after he won, the Antiguan government announced renaming Antigua’s highest mountain, Mount Obama. Like Americans, and people in several countries, the Caribbean anticipates great things for the region from the Obama administration.
Putting aside the euphoria, how realistic is it to expect significant benefits for the Caribbean from an Obama administration? Of course, it is too early to make speculations, and he will be pressed with domestic issues here in America, but nonetheless there are several policies that the new administration should be able to pursue to improve relations with the Caribbean region.
Over the past eight years, the Bush administration’s policy towards the Caribbean lacked substance and the few attempts that were made turned out to be photo ops.
Caribbean leaders are expecting a more meaningful interaction between the U.S. and the region and are hoping that an Obama administration will engage the Caribbean.
With the upcoming Summit of the Americas to be held in Trinidad and Tobago from April 17 to 19, there is an ideal forum for the US through the Obama administration to interact with over 34 Caribbean leaders, listen to their concerns and offer a mutually beneficial plan.
But, the president does not have to take a direct approach to improving the relationship between the U.S. and the Caribbean and Latin America, which are America’s backyard neighbors. The concerns of the region can be adequately represented in the new U.S. administration if the president appoints a high profile ambassador with special responsibility for the Caribbean and Latin America.
This representative could have direct access to the secretary of state, and indirectly to the president and should be someone with a profile like former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Such an envoy should give countries like Haiti and Cuba high priority on the Caribbean agenda.
A President Obama, keen on improving the economy of the region may be able to do this by including the region in his economic plans. For example jobs could be provided in America and the region if the incoming administrators revisit NAFTA, and return the Caribbean to the production of raw material and components relevant to finished products manufactured in the U.S.
Consideration could be given to devising a plan similar to the 807 garment project where some Caribbean countries partook in the production of garments made by U.S. manufacturers. Such a plan would involve American and regional labor, and, accordingly, preserve jobs in America while creating jobs in the region.
Another important role that the Caribbean (and Latin America) can play in the broader economic policy of the Obama administration is in the production of sugar-cane based ethanol. Ethanol is becoming an increasingly important cheaper, cleaner alternative to other fuels and is more economical than corn-based ethanol. A joint American-regional plan could be developed from the one already initiated by the Bush administration to utilize the region as a mass producer of sugar-cane based ethanol. This allows America, with its advanced economies of scale to concentrate on the production of sugar and corn for consumption.
In this way, a cheaper, cleaner source of fuel would be produced in the region while providing more jobs, as the USA focuses on producing food to ease international food shortage, instead of producing food for fuel.
Hopefully, one of the first executive orders of the new president will be to give temporary protective status (TPS) to Haitians residing in the U.S. illegally. In fact, with millions of illegal U.S. immigrants originating from the Caribbean and Latin America, it is anticipated that a reformed immigration bill be another of Obama’s early priorities. Obama told the Caribbean press recently that the U.S. has to revisit Haiti’s problems beyond just TPS by working with its government to fix their economy and other dire issues.
But these and other ‘Caribbean’ issues will not be addressed just because we are ‘in the neighborhood’. Most of Obama’s attention will and should be focused on rebuilding the U.S. economy and dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, there has to be strategic lobbying by Caribbean leaders as a collective unit to ensure that their issues make it to the President’s desk.
|
|
|
|
