Editorial | Jamaica and the OACPS

With Donald Trump imminent occupancy of the White House, these are likely to be fraught times for developing countries. Jamaica is one of those.

During his first go at the US presidency, Mr Trump made clear his disdain for such countries, especially those that lacked strategic resources, as well as for the institutions and global order in which these nations found a security blanket, limited though it might be. He mocked the United Nations, and called Haiti a “sh...hole country”. He mused wistfully at the failure of the United States to attract more immigrants from Scandinavia and Northern Europe generally.

Mr Trump’s condescension towards the so-called Third World has been on display again, such as with his threat to take back the Panama Canal from Panama.

Further, Mr Trump has been rolling out an updated brand of his ‘America First’ ideology, underpinned by aggressive rhetoric and declarations of America’s willingness to grab from others, things that it believes to be in its strategic interests, including whole countries and territories.

So he has mulled the possibility of using economic pressure to annex the US’s next-door neighbour, Canada, and of acquiring Greenland from Denmark, for which he did not rule out the use of military force.

It is quite possible that Mr Trump is exaggerating, attempting to keep his domestic adversaries and America’s international competitors off-balanced and guessing about what he will really do. Nonetheless, developing countries, especially, cannot afford to wait for Mr Trump, or the leaders of other powerful countries, to act, or believe that the US president-elect is merely engaging in hyperbole.

NECESSARY PARTNERSHIPS

Neither can small countries stand alone against the world’s superpowers, or believe that they can slip through the cracks, hoping to survive indefinitely merely by attempting to align their interests and values with the powerful nations. Clearly, such partnerships and cooperation with powerful countries are necessary. But so, too, is building partnerships where the commonality of interests is real and there is value to be extracted from conglomeration.

In that context, in this region of small island developing states, the merit of an institution like the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is unassailable, as is cooperation with other countries of the Global South. Indeed, Jamaica, with its history of success in global diplomacy and its long advocacy partnerships between developing countries, fully understands this.

Which is why this newspaper is surprised by the Government’s prolonged silence over its decision to withdraw, presumably temporarily, from the operations of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), a grouping in whose founding Jamaica played a pivotal role in the mid-1970s.

The OCAPS was originally the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries (ACP), which was established to negotiate a trade and aid agreement, the Lomé Convention, with what was then the European Economic Community. P.J. Patterson, the former prime minister, who was Jamaica’s foreign minister at the time, had an outsized role in the Lomé negotiations.

The ACP transitioned to the OACPS in 2020 after the European Union (EU) pivoted to a series of so-called regional trade agreements, or regional economic partnerships, with the ACP members, rendering the role of that organisation overseeing a single agreement largely redundant.

While there are some areas of EU-supported arrangements between the 79 members of the OACPS, it has evolved into an organisation whose primary mission is promoting cooperation in development of its signatories. Its numbers, if there is policy coordination, potentially also gives it political clout.

MEETING AGENDA

In early December, the OACPS’ council of ministers, the organisation’s main decision-making body, but for when there are summits of heads of government, held a hybrid (in-person and virtual) meeting, whose agenda included organisational reforms. Jamaica’s foreign minister, who was previously president of the council, was at the meeting, which she said was important because many of the issues were discussed “under our chairmanship, with a view to ensuring the OACPS remains responsive to the needs of its members”.

“Jamaica’s participation underscores our commitment to regional and multilateral cooperation. This council meeting provides an opportunity for member states to engage in high-level dialogue, ensuring the OACPS remains a unified and influential voice on the global stage,” Ms Johnson Smith told the meeting’s December 4 opening, according to a report of her remarks posted on the Jamaican foreign ministry’s website.

However, it has been circulated in diplomatic circles in OACPS countries that on December 6, Ms Johnson Smith walked out of the session in the midst of a contretemps with the meeting chair, Ingrid Ebouka-Babackas, Republic of Congo’s minister for planning, statistics and regional integration, over the yielding of the floor. Apparently, Caribbean ministers who were present left the meeting in solidarity with Ms Johnson Smith.

Jamaica, diplomats say, followed up with letters to the OACPS, announcing that it was temporarily withdrawing operational support of the organisation where a Jamaican diplomat, Junior Lodge, is one of the deputy secretaries general.

It has been more than a month since that development, but the foreign ministry offered no public explanation of its action, and when, or if, it will return to the OACPS, and what was the strategic mission of its action.

It has been more than a week since December 31, when the foreign ministry’s press department, in response to queries by this newspaper, promised to “issue a press release addressing the concerns raised by The Gleaner Company”.

Addressing this issue is not to satisfy someone’s prurient curiosity. It is a substantial matter of foreign policy, involving an organisation in which Jamaica has a major stake and which is of potential strategic value.