Gail Alexan­der

It was a big Cari­com turnout for the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit which opened yes­ter­day in Los An­ge­les.

Lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the ma­jor­i­ty of Cari­com’s 15-mem­ber states are at­tend­ing the 9th Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, which was launched last night by US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden. Biden’s in­au­gur­al ad­dress un­veiled the “Amer­i­c­as Part­ner­ship” - a five-pronged bid to bol­ster economies of the re­gion via trade agree­ments and ad­dress­ing in­equal­i­ty, lack of eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty and eq­ui­ty.

He al­so an­nounced a part­ner­ship with the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty to ad­dress cli­mate is­sues.

The list­ing of Sum­mit at­ten­dees shared by T&T’s del­e­ga­tion showed the pres­ence of T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Cari­com chair­man Be­lize Prime Min­is­ter John Briceno, Cari­com Sec­re­tary Dr Car­la Bar­nette, Suri­name Pres­i­dent Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi, St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Phillip Pierre, Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, Guyana Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali, Do­mini­can Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, Haiti’ Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry, Ba­hamas Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis and An­tigua/Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne.

In ear­ly May, Browne had in­di­cat­ed he wouldn’t at­tend.

St Kitts am­bas­sador to the US Thel­ma Brown rep­re­sent­ed her coun­try. Grena­da’s Min­is­ter of Health and Se­cu­ri­ty Nick­o­las Steele al­so rep­re­sent­ed his is­land.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley participates in a Caricom Heads of Government caucus meeting yesterday, ahead of the formal opening of the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California. Several Caricom heads were in attendance at the meeting, which was led by Chair of the Conference, Prime Minister of Belize John Briceño. Dr Rowley will attend the summit’s inaugural ceremony which will be hosted by US President Joseph Biden.

But there was no rep­re­sen­ta­tive or list­ing for Montser­rat or St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

The lat­ter coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Ralph Gon­salves, had boy­cotted due to Sum­mit host Unit­ed States’ non-in­vi­ta­tion of Cu­ba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and he’d called for Cari­com to boy­cott the gath­er­ing al­so.

Sev­er­al oth­er ter­ri­to­ries op­posed to the non-in­vi­ta­tion al­so sent team rep­re­sen­ta­tives rather than heads of state, in­clud­ing Mex­i­co, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, Hon­duras and Uraguay.

How­ev­er, oth­er lead­ers from South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca at­tend­ed, as well as Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, of­fi­cials of agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, IDB, PA­HO, World Bank and UNDP, plus ob­servers from Eu­rope, Asia, Nor­way and Africa.

Yes­ter­day, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley had joined oth­er Caribbean col­leagues in a cau­cus meet­ing of Cari­com at noon, pri­or to the in­au­gu­ra­tion.

Browne al­so ad­dressed yes­ter­day’s meet­ing of the Min­is­te­r­i­al Sum­mit im­ple­men­ta­tion re­view group com­pris­ing all For­eign Min­is­ters at­tend­ing the sum­mit.

Browne un­der­scored T&T’s pri­or­i­ties and Cari­com with­in the hemi­sphere.

To­mor­row, a de­c­la­ra­tion on mi­gra­tion to stem what the US has de­scribed as an im­mi­gra­tion flow cri­sis will al­so be signed.

Founder and con­ven­er of the Com­mit­tee on the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women (CEDAW) Com­mit­tee of T&T, Ter­ry Ince, was one of the very few peo­ple to ad­dress the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, which al­so in­clud­ed ad­dress­es from Pres­i­dent Biden, US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris and Pe­ru’s Pres­i­dent Pe­dro Castil­lo.

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