Caribbean coun­tries should not ex­pect spe­cial deals or pref­er­ences from the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) if Britain is not there to ar­gue on their be­half, says Prof W Andy Knight.

Ac­cord­ing to Knight, pro­fes­sor of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­ber­ta, Cana­da, and for­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, UWI, St Au­gus­tine, now that the ma­jor­i­ty of British vot­ers have de­cid­ed that their coun­try should "leave" the EU, it is like­ly to im­pact neg­a­tive­ly on the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment be­tween Car­i­fo­rum (Cari­com plus the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic) and the EU?

In an in­ter­view with jour­nal­ist TONY FRAS­ER, Knight said he sees fall­outs in trade and tourism. He said Cari­com, rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­ests of its mem­ber states, will have to be bold and proac­tive in re­cal­i­brat­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Caribbean and the UK.

Now that the ma­jor­i­ty of British vot­ers have de­cid­ed that their coun­try should "leave" the Eu­ro­pean Union, is that like­ly to im­pact neg­a­tive­ly on the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment be­tween Car­i­fo­rum and the EU?

Yes, that can neg­a­tive­ly erode the EPA. So one can ex­pect that the pref­er­en­tial deals with re­spect to trade and com­mer­cial in­ter­ests which the UK was able to ne­go­ti­ate for the Caribbean with­in the EU will now have to be re­ex­am­ined by the EU. This is not to say that the EU will nec­es­sar­i­ly elim­i­nate those pref­er­en­tial treat­ments. But, let's be re­al­is­tic, the 27-mem­ber coun­tries of the EU have very lit­tle in the way of a re­la­tion­ship with the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean. So with­out Britain present to ar­gue on their be­half, Caribbean coun­tries should not ex­pect spe­cial deals or pref­er­ences com­ing to them from the EU mi­nus Britain.

How does Cari­com seek to re­or­gan­ise its re­la­tion­ship with a Britain not be­ing part of the EU?

It seems to me that Cari­com, rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­ests of its Caribbean mem­ber states, will have to be bold and proac­tive in re­cal­i­bra­tion of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Caribbean and the UK. The UK, on the oth­er hand, may very well have to en­gage in a se­ries of dif­fi­cult bi­lat­er­al trade ne­go­ti­a­tions with the coun­tries of the Caribbean.

But, the re­al­i­ty is that trade ne­go­tia­tors in the Caribbean are not al­ways well trained in the art of ne­go­ti­a­tions. The re­gion should en­sure that their chief trade ne­go­tia­tors are well trained for the task. This el­e­vates the rel­e­vance of the Diplo­mat­ic Acad­e­my of the Caribbean. Do you an­tic­i­pate an im­me­di­ate neg­a­tive im­pact on the Caribbean be­cause of Brex­it?

I see po­ten­tial prob­lems for tourism in the Caribbean, es­pe­cial­ly in Bar­ba­dos. One of the first signs that the Brex­it re­sult has re­vealed is the down­ward slide of the ster­ling. On Black Fri­day, the pound fell to its low­est lev­el in 30 years. A weak pound will have an im­pact on the abil­i­ty of Brits to take hol­i­days in the Caribbean and to in­vest in va­ca­tion prop­er­ties in the re­gion. In 2015 there were about 1.5 mil­lion UK vis­i­tors to the Caribbean. In Bar­ba­dos, in par­tic­u­lar, British na­tion­als are im­por­tant source of re­al es­tate for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. If these Brits are faced with a weak ster­ling, then they may not take va­ca­tions in Bar­ba­dos and oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

What of the fate of Caribbean im­mi­grants in Britain and those who may want to go to Britain in the fu­ture, will they ben­e­fit or suf­fer be­cause of the Brex­it vote?

My big con­cern with the Leave cam­paign was how their lead­er­ship (Boris John­son, Michael Gove, and Nigel Farage) utilised fear of im­mi­grants to con­vince Brits to say no to the EU.

This big­ot­ed and xeno­pho­bic rhetoric could have im­pli­ca­tions for how Caribbean peo­ple are treat­ed if they want to go to Britain or re­unite with fam­i­ly mem­bers in that coun­try.

The far-right voic­es of in­tol­er­ance and racism trumped the mid­dle of the road voic­es of tol­er­ance and the em­brace of the "oth­er". Un­less these po­ten­tial lead­ers tone down their rhetoric the less tol­er­ant mem­bers of British so­ci­ety might ha­rass Caribbean in­di­vid­u­als in the coun­try, or block those Caribbean peo­ple who are try­ing to mi­grate to the UK.

Can the drop out from the EU have a domi­no ef­fect in Cari­com and can be a blow to re­gion­al­i­sa­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion. For in­stance, can one of the big Cari­com mem­ber states fol­low the ex­am­ple of the ma­jor­i­ty of British vot­ers?

Of course, now that the Leave cam­paign in Britain has been suc­cess­ful, one has to be con­cerned about copy­cat forces not on­ly in Eu­rope but al­so in the Caribbean. This re­sult on Black Fri­day set back the in­te­gra­tion projects around the globe. We know how dif­fi­cult it has been to have a tru­ly in­te­grat­ed Caribbean. Well, this Brex­it re­sult may in­spire coun­tries like T&T to leave the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket Econ­o­my (CSME). How­ev­er, if the con­se­quences for Britain's ex­it from EU are no­tice­ably se­vere, then coun­tries might be less will­ing to with­draw from large trade blocs. Re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion is not a fore­gone con­clu­sion. I think that Brex­it will cause coun­tries that have more or less suc­cumbed to the con­clu­sion that "there is no al­ter­na­tive" to the glob­al­i­sa­tion to be­gin to ques­tion that premise. If in­di­vid­u­als can­not see the ben­e­fits of in­te­gra­tion, then they will be­gin to think about ways of get­ting out of in­te­grat­ed arrange­ments.

Can the Re­pub­li­can pre­sump­tive can­di­date, the seem­ing­ly ir­re­press­ible Don­ald Trump, whose cam­paign has been about sep­a­ra­tion, draw en­er­gy and in­spi­ra­tion from Brex­it with him pos­si­bly gain­ing trac­tion in the US pres­i­den­tial cam­paign?

Al­ready Trump is say­ing that he sees par­al­lels be­tween what hap­pened in Britain on Thurs­day/Fri­day and what is go­ing on in the US. He seems to be­lieve that Brex­it will some­how help him gain mo­men­tum in his cam­paign to be Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. But if Amer­i­cans con­sid­er the se­ri­ous fall­out that the re­sults of the British ref­er­en­dum will bring, then they might be more re­luc­tant to sup­port the xeno­pho­bic and big­ot­ed can­di­date in No­vem­ber.

There is no ques­tion that some of the an­ti-es­tab­lish­ment sen­ti­ments in both Britain and the US are sim­i­lar. The old­er gen­er­a­tion, and the white in­di­vid­u­als from rur­al ar­eas who are afraid of change and afraid of "for­eign­ers" might be tempt­ed to sup­port Trump. But they should pay heed to the many peo­ple now com­ing for­ward in the UK to ex­press buy­ers re­morse.

I think that many Brits just want­ed to send a mes­sage to the British Gov­ern­ment (and to the EU) that they were fed up in be­ing tak­en for grant­ed; they could not see the ben­e­fits of glob­al­i­sa­tion and Eu­ro­pean in­te­gra­tion.

All they could see was that they were falling fur­ther and fur­ther be­hind fi­nan­cial­ly while im­mi­grants seem to be ben­e­fit­ting from the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits that ac­crued for glob­al­i­sa­tion. Those Amer­i­cans that think that way will most like­ly sup­port Trump, un­less Hillary Clin­ton can con­vince them of the un­cer­tain­ty that will come with a Trump pres­i­den­cy and of the dam­age that he can do not on­ly do­mes­ti­cal­ly but al­so glob­al­ly.