Editorial | CARICOM and Mr Trump

As much of the world waits with trepidation for the second coming of Donald Trump, Jamaica and the Caribbean shouldn’t be passive bystanders, preparing to be overtaken by events.

The Caribbean must, as best as it can, anticipate what is coming, and, insofar as possible, put itself in a position to influence those of Mr Trump’s policies with which it is likely to have concerns. Put another way, the region, and in particular the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), should open conversations with Mr Trump’s team, even ahead of his formal inauguration as America’s 47th president on January 20, 2025.

In that regard, the Barbadian prime minister, Mia Mottley, is on the right track with her public call for face-to-face discussions with the US president-elect to find “common ground” on climate change.

Ms Mottley must now go further. She should not only formalise that proposal, but ensure that the invitation/request is from all of CARICOM’s heads of government, unless a member state deliberately or specifically opts out.

However, any discussion that CARICOM has with the Trump administration has to be built on preparation. The region has to be clear about priorities and how they are to be pursued.

Both at the domestic and community levels, CARICOM leaders must therefore urgently set their technocrats to work defining issues and the strategies for engagement.

In doing so, the Caribbean won’t be unique. Other regions and countries, too, are having to prepare and adjust for the possibility of another mercurial Trump presidency after his previous chaotic reign. International concern over what Mr Trump might do is, of course, a consequence of America’s global primacy, given the authority that comes with being the world’s largest economy and its most technologically sophisticated military. There is, too, America’s outsized influence on, and often control of, supposedly multilateral institutions.

CHANGE IN SUBSTANCE

Indeed, even the European Union, a giant 27-member largely integrated economy, is having to contemplate a change in the substance and texture of its relationship with Mr Trump’s America.

For instance, Mr Trump, as he did during his first presidency (2017-2020), has been haranguing the Europeans about contributing more to the funding to their mutual defence alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). He has also signalled a possible cutback of American military assistance to Ukraine for its war with Russia.

Critically, Mr Trump is keen on upending global trade regimes and has told the Europeans that he will consider raising tariffs on their exports unless they import more from the United States.

He has made even more draconian threats against China, the other emerging global power, which the United States considers a geopolitical and strategic rival.

Unsurprisingly, part of the conversation by EU leaders at a summit in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, last week was how prepared they were, or need to be, for Mr Trump’s possible protectionist policies.

The consensus, according to reporting from that meeting, was that Europe had to beef up its own defence while, on the economic front, it needed to innovate more, disentangle red tape, improve productivity and make it easier to access capital.

“There is broad consensus that this is the basis on which to move forward,” said the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Or as Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, put it: “Don’t ask what the US can do for you, ask what Europe should do for itself. Europe must find a balance. We know what we have to do.”

BENEFIT

All the economic concerns of the EU leaders reverberate across CARICOM. This middle-income developing region could obviously benefit from the policy actions of a sympathetic US administration. Which Mr Trump, in his first iteration, did not show himself to be. In many instances he was openly hostile to countries like those in the Caribbean.

But statecraft and foreign policy are not only about negotiating with countries that share your philosophy or ideology. A very principled pursuance of interests is critical.

With respect to the Caribbean, whose small island states face existential threats from global warming and climate change (concepts largely rejected by Mr Trump, who has threatened to pull America out of the Paris climate agreement) anything that may bring America’s new administration onside, without the region surrendering its sovereignty or grace, is worth trying. Which is why we endorse Ms Mottley’s idea for a face-to-face engagement with Mr Trump.

“I think that there are possibilities for discussion,” she told UK’s Guardian newspaper in the margins of the COP29 climate talks in Baku. “The same warp speed that President Trump addressed the issue of vaccines and the development of a vaccine is the same warp speed that we want to encourage him and others to look at for decarbonising technology.”

The region’s crisis of debt, inequities in the global financial architecture, climate mitigation finance and regional security are among some of the other issues that CARICOM’s leaders will probably want to address with Mr Trump.

Given the urgency of the matter, CARICOM’s chairman, the Grenadian prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, should convene an emergency summit of leaders to discuss the region’s agenda for its coming relationship with the United States.

The community should also begin strategic engagement with other countries of the Global South, especially in Africa, with which CARICOM has common interests and formal cooperation agreements.