Geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions are height­en­ing be­tween the Unit­ed States and Chi­na fol­low­ing the vis­it of US House Speak­er Nan­cy Polos­ki to Tai­wan, and this could have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences in the Caribbean re­gion as it re­lates to food se­cu­ri­ty, says agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said the Cari­com re­gion must be­gin mak­ing ad­just­ments in terms of food, feed, fu­el and fer­tilis­er needs.

He said coun­tries like the US and Chi­na, from which T&T im­ports food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts, may with­hold prod­ucts short­ly.

“Tra­di­tion­al food ex­port­ing coun­tries may re­vis­it their ex­port strate­gies and in­ter­nal poli­cies to­wards build­ing re­serves to main­tain food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty of their pop­u­la­tions. It puts Trinidad and To­ba­go, and oth­er Cari­com mem­bers—more than 18 mil­lion peo­ple, in an awk­ward and ex­posed po­si­tion,” Ma­haraj said.

He not­ed that Pelosi’s vis­it to Tai­wan must be ob­served very care­ful­ly by the de­vel­op­ing world, es­pe­cial­ly Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States in the Caribbean.

“The vis­it is an ap­par­ent vi­o­la­tion of the com­mit­ments in the three com­mu­niqués be­tween Chi­na and the USA. The com­mu­niqués played a cru­cial role in the es­tab­lish­ment of re­la­tions be­tween the coun­tries and con­tin­ue to be an es­sen­tial el­e­ment in the di­a­logue be­tween the two. These, along with the Six As­sur­ances and Tai­wan Re­la­tions Act,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

He added: “In­ter­na­tion­al news me­dia are re­port­ing pos­si­ble provo­ca­tions which may lead to war. Chi­na slams the vis­it as ‘ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous’, with Bei­jing lead­ers con­sid­er­ing the ac­tion as ‘play­ing with fire’ amid height­ened US-Chi­na ten­sions.”

Not­ing that world peace, in­clu­sive de­vel­op­ment, glob­al lo­gis­tics and food sys­tems are al­ready volatile due to the pan­dem­ic ef­fects, Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine and oth­er po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic strug­gles, Ma­haraj said: “A ca­su­al­ty of this threat cre­at­ed by the USA could be food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty.”

Ma­haraj said be­tween 2014-2018, Chi­na ex­port­ed al­most US$360 bil­lion in food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts to the world.

“Food and agri­cul­ture prod­uct ex­ports rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 3.14 per cent of to­tal Chi­nese ex­ports. Of all Chi­na’s ex­ports to Cari­com, food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts con­sti­tute an an­nu­al av­er­age of 3.21 per cent for the same pe­ri­od or US$ 88 mil­lion,” he said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, he said the USA ex­port­ed al­most US$723 bil­lion in food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts to the world. Food and agri­cul­ture prod­uct ex­ports rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 9.27 per cent of to­tal Amer­i­can ex­ports.

“Of all USA’s ex­ports to Cari­com, food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts con­sti­tute an an­nu­al av­er­age of 21.04 per cent for the same pe­ri­od or US$2.5 bil­lion,” he added.

Ma­haraj said these food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 18.21 per cent of to­tal Cari­com im­ports or US$5.5 bil­lion.

Be­cause of this de­pen­den­cy, he said the Caribbean has to relook its poli­cies and re­think its strate­gies.

Say­ing he was al­so wor­ried about re­cent re­ports of di­min­ished im­port cov­er, Ma­haraj said re­duced for­eign rev­enue and re­serves in the face of main­tain­ing our im­port de­pen­dence is a chal­lenge.

“The po­ten­tial for in­creased food prices and less­ened quan­ti­ties on the glob­al mar­ket is gain­ing mo­men­tum with re­stric­tions, pro­duc­tion and prod­uct sourc­ing, trans­porta­tion and evolv­ing food safe­ty is­sues. While high­er prices may ease elas­tic de­mand, we de­pend on many im­port­ed, ba­sic sta­ple food prod­ucts, es­pe­cial­ly rice, fruits, veg­eta­bles, dairy prod­ucts and meats in­clud­ing seafood,” he said.

He ex­pressed hope that re­gion­al lead­ers will de­vel­op a plan at the up­com­ing Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum and Ex­po to be held lat­er this month.