Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

Since its for­ma­tion in 1973, re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion has been a cen­tral goal of Cari­com. The pro­mo­tion of eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, co­or­di­nat­ed for­eign pol­i­cy and shared de­vel­op­ment should, in the­o­ry, ben­e­fit Caribbean states. How­ev­er, de­spite this vi­sion of uni­ty, Cari­com’s his­to­ry re­veals re­peat­ed in­stances where mem­ber states have dis­agreed, formed sep­a­rate blocs, or pur­sued in­de­pen­dent strate­gies to pro­tect na­tion­al in­ter­ests.

One of the clear­est ex­am­ples was the for­ma­tion of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) in 1981. Its mem­bers rep­re­sent a sub-re­gion­al group­ing of small­er coun­tries that chose deep­er in­te­gra­tion among them­selves.

Cari­com has strug­gled to reach its full po­ten­tial due to in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal chal­lenges, in­clud­ing dif­fer­ing al­liances and ide­olo­gies, lead­er­ship clash­es and vary­ing na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties. Eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty cre­ates im­bal­ances in de­ci­sion-mak­ing, while ex­ter­nal pres­sures from pow­er­ful na­tions fur­ther com­pli­cate re­gion­al uni­ty.

On Ju­ly 4, 2023, Cari­com lead­ers gath­ered in Trinidad to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. Then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley spoke about the “four pil­lars of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion,” name­ly func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, co­or­di­na­tion of for­eign pol­i­cy, se­cu­ri­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion and eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion. Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett pledged greater sup­port for Haiti.

Two years lat­er, Haiti still faces pover­ty, vi­o­lence and in­sta­bil­i­ty. Cari­com con­tin­ues to fail Haiti.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a dis­joint­ed Cari­com re­sponse was ev­i­dent. In Feb­ru­ary 2021, Bar­ba­dos re­ceived a do­na­tion of 100,000 vac­cines from In­dia. Con­cerns arose that T&T had been slow to en­gage diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, while oth­er Caribbean states se­cured sup­plies. Then Row­ley (al­so then chair­man of Cari­com) stat­ed that the coun­try would not go “beg­ging” for vac­cines. Bar­ba­dos lat­er gift­ed 2,000 dos­es to us, and the gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed for 40,000 vac­cines from In­dia in April.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, mem­ber states have al­so dif­fered on is­sues of sov­er­eign­ty, for­eign in­ter­ven­tion and ex­ter­nal in­flu­ence. The 1983 in­va­sion of Grena­da high­light­ed these di­vi­sions. Six Caribbean coun­tries sup­port­ed the US-led in­ter­ven­tion, ar­gu­ing that the sit­u­a­tion posed a threat to re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty. In con­trast, T&T, Guyana, Be­lize and The Ba­hamas op­posed the in­va­sion. Then T&T prime min­is­ter and Cari­com chair­man George Cham­bers em­pha­sised non-in­ter­ven­tion and sov­er­eign­ty. He crit­i­cised those who aban­doned a Cari­com con­sen­sus that had favoured peace­ful so­lu­tions and viewed the in­va­sion as “a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that un­der­mined re­gion­al au­ton­o­my.”

Years lat­er, po­si­tions shift­ed. T&T, Guyana and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic aligned with the US through the “Shield of Amer­i­c­as” ini­tia­tive, and some coun­tries that once sup­port­ed in­ter­ven­tion now em­pha­sise sov­er­eign­ty and non-in­ter­fer­ence.

An­oth­er di­vide was seen in 2005 over Hugo Chavez’s Petro­Caribe ini­tia­tive. Coun­tries such as Ja­maica, Haiti and Do­mini­ca em­braced this Venezue­lan pro­gramme, while T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning, spoke out and warned, “It is a ques­tion of cut­ting your own throat if you are not care­ful.”

Years lat­er, Man­ning’s suc­ces­sor and Chavez’s suc­ces­sor were danc­ing part­ners. Af­ter ini­tial­ly dis­tanc­ing it­self from Venezuela, this cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion has now an­nounced an en­er­gy mis­sion. Pol­i­cy po­si­tions change based on shift­ing po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ties.

Even the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) has chal­lenges. Some coun­tries have lim­it­ed key pro­vi­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing the free move­ment of labour. Con­cerns about do­mes­tic em­ploy­ment and so­cial pres­sures have led gov­ern­ments to pri­ori­tise na­tion­al pro­tec­tion over re­gion­al com­mit­ments.

In March 2019, dur­ing Don­ald Trump’s first term, six Cari­com lead­ers who sup­port­ed the Li­ma Group ini­tia­tive were in­vit­ed to a meet­ing in the US. T&T and Guyana were not in­vit­ed. Then PM Row­ley em­pha­sised that Cari­com’s po­si­tions should be de­ter­mined by its chair and for­mal mech­a­nisms.

A re­cent state­ment on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Face­book page men­tioned T&T re­main­ing com­mit­ted to Cari­com but called for more trans­paren­cy. She stat­ed that the “or­gan­i­sa­tion and its sec­re­tari­at should ab­solute­ly ex­pect no quar­ter from my Gov­ern­ment … it’s an ap­point­ment (the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al) with long-term ram­i­fi­ca­tions for my cit­i­zens… over the com­ing five years of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my, se­cu­ri­ty, in­te­gra­tion, and for­eign af­fairs.”

Giv­en our cur­rent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, many cit­i­zens ques­tion whether the $126.9 mil­lion Cari­com con­tri­bu­tion could be bet­ter spent do­mes­ti­cal­ly.

His­to­ry sug­gests that na­tion­al in­ter­est has of­ten tak­en prece­dence. In 1962, Dr Er­ic Williams with­drew T&T from the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, de­clar­ing that “one from ten equals ze­ro.” He chose to pri­ori­tise na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment over re­gion­al uni­ty. This prece­dent con­tin­ues to res­onate to­day, as Caribbean states, in­clud­ing T&T, bal­ance the ideals of in­te­gra­tion with the re­al­i­ties of na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.