Ian Quan-Soon

There are winds of change sweep­ing across the Caribbean, and they’re not me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal. My re­cent va­ca­tion in Ja­maica deep­ened my con­cerns about sev­er­al press­ing re­gion­al is­sues:

• The de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela and its im­pact on il­le­gal mi­gra­tion in­to neigh­bour­ing Caribbean na­tions;

• Mas­sive oil dis­cov­er­ies in Guyana and their po­ten­tial for both pros­per­i­ty and geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sion;

• Venezuela’s re­cent threats against Guyana—claim­ing own­er­ship of Guyana’s oil—and against Trinidad & To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing T&T of co­op­er­at­ing with the U.S. CIA; and

• For­mer Pres­i­dent Trump’s moves to mil­i­tarise the re­gion, in­clud­ing a sig­nif­i­cant naval buildup in the Caribbean Sea.

Ja­maica: A tale of trans­for­ma­tion and trade-offs

For the first time, I wit­nessed a vis­i­bly im­proved Ja­maican econ­o­my and in­fra­struc­ture. Com­pared to Trinidad, Ja­maica ap­pears health­i­er and more vi­brant. Chi­nese-led in­fra­struc­ture projects—high­ways, busi­ness­es, and a re­port­ed US$45 bil­lion de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme—are re­shap­ing the land­scape. The trans­for­ma­tion in Kingston and the North Coast since our 2022 vis­it was strik­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when con­trast­ed with Trinidad’s decades of squan­dered op­por­tu­ni­ties, crime, and white-col­lar cor­rup­tion.

Yet, many Ja­maicans wor­ry about the cost of these im­prove­ments. Valu­able na­tion­al as­sets are in­creas­ing­ly owned by for­eign in­ter­ests. A stark ex­am­ple: near­ly all Blue Moun­tain Cof­fee plan­ta­tions are now Japan­ese owned, with 95 per cent of each crop ex­port­ed to Japan.

We trav­elled the new toll high­way from Kingston to the North Coast—an im­pres­sive feat of en­gi­neer­ing. How­ev­er, the toll is re­port­ed­ly US$30 one-way, payable di­rect­ly in­to Chi­nese ac­counts (as claimed by our tour dri­ver, though un­ver­i­fied). Dur­ing our 90-minute jour­ney, we count­ed just five cars. The cur­rent ex­change rate stands at J$159 to USD $1.

�️ Po­lit­i­cal cross­roads

With elec­tions just days away, Ja­maica faces a piv­otal de­ci­sion: whether to deep­en its part­ner­ship with Chi­na. The op­po­si­tion ac­cus­es the gov­ern­ment of sell­ing out na­tion­al in­ter­ests. Mean­while, the US ap­pears re­luc­tant to in­vest in Ja­maica, and Amer­i­can busi­ness­es re­main wary af­ter years of IMF en­tan­gle­ments. Could Trump’s mil­i­tary buildup be a sig­nal— “this is US ter­ri­to­ry, and all com­ers be­ware”?

A storm of a dif­fer­ent kind

Life in the Caribbean is about to get hur­ri­cane-lev­el in­ter­est­ing—and I’m not talk­ing about the weath­er.

Many Ja­maicans re­main fix­at­ed on North Amer­i­ca, of­ten speak­ing of the JA–U.S. re­la­tion­ship as though Ja­maica were the 51st state. Trump’s im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies are viewed as in­sults, fu­elling a per­cep­tion of Chi­na as a sav­iour and the US as a ne­glect­ful for­mer al­ly.

Some ar­gue that Ja­maica’s deep di­as­po­ra in the US wields in­flu­ence in both coun­tries, and that Chi­na pos­es no re­al threat. An­nu­al re­mit­tances from US-based Ja­maicans con­tin­ue to form a sub­stan­tial part of Ja­maica’s bud­get. And the painful mem­o­ries of Prime Min­is­ter Michael Man­ley’s flir­ta­tion with com­mu­nist Cu­ba—and the re­sult­ing eco­nom­ic fall­out—still linger.

Tourism, AI, and the fu­ture

New ho­tels owned by Span­ish and oth­er non-US in­ter­ests are ris­ing along Ja­maica’s north­ern coast. With AI threat­en­ing to elim­i­nate many non-man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs, Ja­maica’s glob­al of­fer­ings—be­yond tourism and reg­gae—seem lim­it­ed. The gov­ern­ment claims that Chi­nese in­fra­struc­ture will lead to skill trans­fers and a man­u­fac­tur­ing base. But that vi­sion clash­es with Chi­na’s own dom­i­nance in glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Uni­ty or Iso­la­tion?

Once again, a lead­ing Caribbean na­tion ap­pears un­will­ing to em­brace the vi­sion of ear­ly in­de­pen­dence lead­ers: “Caribbean uni­fi­ca­tion is crit­i­cal for sur­vival.” Go­ing it alone may sat­is­fy na­tion­al pride, but it’s fool’s gold. In­di­vid­u­al­ly, Caribbean na­tions lack the eco­nom­ic strength and pop­u­la­tion size to thrive. The US and its busi­ness in­ter­ests un­der­stand this—and Trump, it seems, has de­cid­ed to act now to pro­tect Amer­i­can in­ter­ests in the re­gion.

A call to aware­ness

If you share these con­cerns, I urge you to cir­cu­late this ar­ti­cle. Let’s fos­ter aware­ness and di­a­logue among Amer­i­cans and Caribbeans about the seis­mic shifts un­der­way shifts that could pro­found­ly af­fect our lives and those of our fam­i­lies across the re­gion.

Ian Quan-Soon is a T&T-born, se­mi-re­tired in­vest­ment man­ag­er, among whose clients in­clud­ed the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion.