SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The eco­nom­ic, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis which has re­sult­ed in thou­sands of Venezue­lans seek­ing refugee and asy­lum sta­tus in T&T can come to an end.

For­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, Prof Andy Knight, be­lieves the so­lu­tion to this prob­lem hinges on De­mo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Joe Biden win­ning the Unit­ed States pres­i­den­cy.

He made the pre­dic­tion yes­ter­day as he gave his views on whether Biden or in­cum­bent Don­ald Trump would even­tu­al­ly tri­umph.

Knight pre­dict­ed three pos­si­ble out­comes for the US elec­tion. He said if Trump is vic­to­ri­ous it will be by a nar­row mar­gin. An­oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty, he said, is that Biden could win in a tight re­sult that could be con­test­ed by Trump.

The third, he said, “I am op­er­at­ing on the as­sump­tion that there will be a Biden vic­tor.”

His said his ob­ser­va­tions had led him to con­clude that Trump will be a one-term pres­i­dent.

“Why would any­one try to sup­press the vote if they thought that they would like­ly win? Trump had been en­gaged in un­der­min­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, in try­ing to get his sup­port­ers to in­tim­i­date vot­ers whom they think might vote in favour of Biden,” Knight said.

Asked what the US elec­tion may mean for the Caribbean, Knight said al­though for­eign pol­i­cy was not a defin­ing is­sue in this elec­tion cam­paign, it was safe to say the is­sues that were at front and cen­tre of the cam­paign­ing had im­pli­ca­tions for the Caribbean.

He iden­ti­fied COVID-19, the fail­ing US econ­o­my, cli­mate change, the George Floyd killing and the up­surge in racial in­jus­tice and in­equal­i­ty as is­sues that could have con­se­quences for this re­gion.

“I think that while the es­sen­tials of sub­stan­tive US for­eign pol­i­cy with re­spect to the Caribbean is un­like­ly to change dras­ti­cal­ly un­der a Biden pres­i­den­cy, there will be a ma­jor shift in terms of style and rhetoric,” he said.

Knight, now a po­lit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­ber­ta, Cana­da, de­scribed Trump as a bom­bas­tic and di­vi­sive pres­i­dent.

“He has lit­er­al­ly di­vid­ed not on­ly Amer­i­ca but al­so the lead­er­ship in the Caribbean. Trump’s sup­port for the con­tro­ver­sial head of the OAS, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Luis Al­ma­gro from Uruguay, we wit­nessed how Trump, with the col­lu­sion of the OAS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, has tried to un­der­mine democ­ra­cy in Bo­livia.”

Knight said Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion has al­so been us­ing the OAS to push for mil­i­tary sup­port to the Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion in an at­tempt to over­throw Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

“The co­er­cive and ag­gres­sive US for­eign pol­i­cy, which has in­clud­ed stran­gu­lat­ing sanc­tions against the Venezuela Pres­i­dent, which has most­ly hurt the Venezue­lan peo­ple, has been con­duct­ed with the sup­port of Al­ma­gro and caused ma­jor di­vi­sion among Cari­com coun­tries. This has been Trump’s lega­cy in the Caribbean.”

If Biden be­comes the new US pres­i­dent, Knight said the re­gion could wit­ness an end to such co­er­cive and un­pro­duc­tive for­eign pol­i­cy and per­haps a swing to ne­go­ti­at­ed set­tle­ments of the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela.

“Biden is very com­fort­able with Caribbean lead­ers and my sense is that he will be more trust­ed by Maduro than Trump was. I think that Biden will re­spect the wish­es of Cari­com mem­bers to main­tain the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”

Should Biden do that, Knight said this will be very good for the re­gion.

“I can see Biden work­ing close­ly with Caribbean lead­ers to find ways to re­solve the ma­jor refugee cri­sis which has re­sult­ed in thou­sands of Venezue­lan refugees and asy­lum seek­ers com­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go and over 1.6 mil­lion mi­grants flood­ing in­to Colom­bia. At the end of the day, un­der a Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, one could ex­pect a nor­mal­cy in the con­duct of for­eign pol­i­cy and a less er­rat­ic de­ci­sion-mak­ing process. The Caribbean will be able to breathe.”

Knight al­so ex­pects Biden to work with Cari­com coun­tries through the Caribbean Basin Ini­tia­tive to pro­mote eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment vie the pri­vate sec­tor in this re­gion.

“In that sense, there will be lit­tle change be­tween Biden and Trump. But in gen­er­al, I am con­vinced that Biden, once he is pres­i­dent, will quick­ly re­vert to the poli­cies of the Oba­ma era, when he served as vice-pres­i­dent of the US,” Knight said.

“There will be a fo­cus on US bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, with­out the build­ing of ex­pen­sive walls for which Mex­i­co has not paid a pe­so. There will be a re­turn to a more hu­mane and sen­si­ble im­mi­gra­tion re­form, which would al­low “dream­ers” in the US - in­clud­ing those of Caribbean her­itage, a path to cit­i­zen­ship and a chance to con­tin­ue to con­tribute to Amer­i­can so­ci­ety and econ­o­my.”

This, Knight said, would be in stark con­trast to Trump’s cur­rent xeno­pho­bic and racist im­mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy.

“The em­brace of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism in ad­dress­ing prob­lems that are clear­ly “in­ter­mes­tic” will be one of the defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of a Biden pres­i­den­cy,” he said.

Re­gard­less of who wins, Knight said the di­min­ish­ing role of the US in glob­al af­fairs will con­tin­ue.

“Biden will sim­ply have to ac­knowl­edge that the US is de­clin­ing as a glob­al hege­mo­ny and that Chi­na is gain­ing on the US in a num­ber of ar­eas,” he said.

“This is a re­al­i­ty that ex­ist­ed be­fore Trump came to of­fice. Sure, Trump’s er­rat­ic style and jin­go­is­tic rhetoric made the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the US and Chi­na worse. Biden will have to find a way to re­pair that dam­aged re­la­tion­ship and bring an end to the trade wars be­tween the two coun­tries.”