The Unit­ed States has re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to eco­nom­ic growth and pros­per­i­ty in the Caribbean re­gion, as coun­tries con­tin­ue to find their way through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The re­state­ment of U.S. com­mit­ment to the re­gion came as U.S. De­part­ment of Com­merce Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for the West­ern Hemi­sphere, Ian Saun­ders, pro­vid­ed the keynote ad­dress for the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Am­ChamTT), yes­ter­day.  He spot­light­ed com­pet­i­tive­ness, trans­paren­cy, and se­cu­ri­ty as pil­lars that sup­port eco­nom­ic growth and job cre­ation in the Unit­ed States and in the Caribbean.

The Com­merce De­part­ment Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary said that the Unit­ed States acts in its own, and in the Caribbean’s best in­ter­est, when it helps neigh­bour­ing na­tions build open economies and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ty for all their peo­ples. 

“Let me as­sure you that the Unit­ed States will re­main a stead­fast and com­mit­ted part­ner, as we work to move our re­gion to­wards its enor­mous po­ten­tial as an en­gine of growth, op­por­tu­ni­ty and pover­ty re­duc­tion for its own cit­i­zens, and for the glob­al econ­o­my,” he said. 

Fo­cussing on the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on the re­gion in terms of lives lost, and suf­fer­ing en­dured, Mr Saun­ders spoke of the im­por­tance of eco­nom­ic en­gage­ment be­tween the Unit­ed States and the Caribbean.

“In the face of this mon­u­men­tal chal­lenge, all gov­ern­ments are ask­ing how to de­liv­er pros­per­i­ty, jobs, and hope for their peo­ple,” he not­ed.

Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Saun­ders told the Am­Cham mem­bers that the pan­dem­ic’s strains on pub­lic fi­nances have led to the de­fer­ral of pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture projects or worse—caused coun­tries to turn to new sources of debt fi­nance that do not op­er­ate with the same trans­paren­cy as pri­vate cap­i­tal mar­kets. 

He list­ed oth­er com­mon chal­lenges fac­ing the re­gion—name­ly ad­dress­ing cli­mate change; ac­cel­er­at­ing en­er­gy tran­si­tion; en­sur­ing se­cu­ri­ty; im­prov­ing health­care; and the need to build in­fra­struc­ture—stat­ing that gov­ern­ments can­not, and should not, ad­dress these chal­lenges alone. 

Mr Saun­ders said that the U.S. De­part­ment of Com­merce, in part­ner­ship with U.S. em­bassies in 14 Caribbean mar­kets, is plan­ning a Caribbean Re­gion Trade Mis­sion and Busi­ness Con­fer­ence for Oc­to­ber.  The trade mis­sion will con­nect U.S. com­pa­nies to op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean re­gion, in­clud­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

Ac­cord­ing to Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Saun­ders, the “Trade Amer­i­c­as – Busi­ness Op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean Re­gion Con­fer­ence” will fea­ture re­gion-spe­cif­ic ses­sions, and re­sources on mar­ket en­try strate­gies, ex­port com­pli­ance, lo­gis­tics, dis­as­ter re­silience and re­cov­ery, and trade fi­nanc­ing.  It will al­so in­clude ses­sions on fi­nanc­ing and le­gal and trans­paren­cy is­sues.