Pompeo calls for unity among Caribbean leaders and the U.S. during regional visit
Wrapping up a four-nation tour Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended a meeting with a select group of Caribbean foreign ministers in Jamaica, insisting that the United States has no intention of trying to divide the 15-member Caribbean Community economic bloc known as Caricom.
“Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow,” Pompeo said at a press conference ahead of a round-table discussion with six Caribbean foreign ministers in Kingston. “We want all the countries of this region to prosper and be successful. We know that countries in this region will agree with the United States on certain positions from time to time and disagree with us from time to time — that’s true for Jamaica as well it’s true for many of the folks that I’ll visit with this afternoon.
“We want to invite them all to be part of the economic prosperity, security zone that is this region.”
But among those who were not part of the talks were key nations, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who accused the U.S. of trying to divide the bloc by not inviting some countries, is the current chair of the bloc. Trinidad, meanwhile, is in charge of the security portfolio for the region and the Caricom member state most impacted by the Venezuela migration crisis. It is also a recruiting ground for ISIS volunteers, which along with the crisis in Venezuela, was raised by Pompeo.
Just a handful of the 15 Caricom nations — the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia — were part of the discussions, along with the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic isn’t a member of Caricom, and in 2013 its application to join the regional bloc was suspended after a ruling by its high court stripped most Dominicans of Haitian descent of their citizenship.
“As chairman of Caricom, it is impossible for me to agree that my foreign minister should attend a meeting with anyone to which members of Caricom are not invited,” Mottley said in a widely broadcast speech Sunday. “If some are invited and not all, then it is an attempt to divide this region.”
Caricom has developed a reputation as a key voting bloc on hemispheric issues, but members have been at odds recently over the Trump administration’s position on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. That division has also raised questions about how the regional bloc will vote in the upcoming Organization of American States vote to re-elect Secretary General Luis Almagro.
“We’ve made very clear who we think should be the next leader of the OAS,” Pompeo told reporters. “We’ve made that clear because we think he has demonstrated his ability to return financial stability to the institution and return this institution to a really important place, a really important place for all member states of the OAS. And so there’s absolutely no intent to divide. We have conversations, dialogues with every country. We’d welcome that.“
In the wake of Mottley’s position, the prime ministers of Trinidad, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada all showed support for her stance.
“We regret the actions of the Caricom members states to weaken our unity, from which our collective strength is drawn,” Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the Miami Herald. “We have no quarrels with those who divide the region, knowing that it is only the governments of our region, through their own actions and inaction, that could allow such attempts to succeed. Antigua & Barbuda will always act to preserve Caricom unity and relevance of the region.”
Responding to the criticism from his fellow Caribbean leaders, Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness defended his hosting of the U.S.-Caribbean meeting. Jamaica, he said in a tweet, “does not want and does not engage in any policy that would divide CARICOM. Jamaica’s interest is to unite the region for prosperity, freedom, and peace.”
“If anyone wanted to attend, they just had to signal,” Holness said in the press conference with Pompeo. “From my perspective we would have done everything to ensure that they were present.”
Asked by the Herald who extended the invitations for the Pompeo meeting and how Caribbean nations were chosen, the State Department did not say.
Some observers have mused that the gathering very much mimicked that of President Donald Trump’s meeting in March 2018 at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach County with five Caribbean leaders, all of whom were represented in Jamaica. They also believe it’s connected to the administration’s campaign to get Almagro re-elected.
Almagro has been a stalwart supporter of the Trump administration’s bid to oust Maduro.
In a live broadcast after his round-table discussions, Pompeo opened up by quoting Almagro, who he said visited with him last weekend in Washington and told him, “Latin America and the Caribbean no longer are out of sight of the United States.”
“I think he was probably right,” Pompeo said. “For too long the United States focused on the Caribbean only when natural disasters hit; too many U.S. officials came here to talk about aid, aid alone. ... I believe that the United States and Caribbean nations do much more together, can do much more together and importantly should do so much more together.”
In an 11-minute speech, Pompeo highlighted the dangers posed by “the meddling” of Cuba and Russia, and “the easy money of China.” He told the room: “New challenges to our sovereignty and security demand that we get even closer today.”
“Nations all across the region are waking up to all the same shared threats and there is no shortage of them,” Pompeo said. “ISIS fighters have come from Trinidad and Tobago, Hezbollah has tentacles all over South America, FARC and the ELN take refuge today in Venezuela. The man-made crisis that Maduro has caused in Venezuela has driven an unprecedented migration crisis; nearly 5 million Venezuelans have fled his tyranny.”
Later, Pompeo said of Maduro: “This is a man-made catastrophe. This was driven by bad policy, bad politics and a set of leaders who didn’t care about their own people.”
The challenges and threats being faced today, he said, are “very different from the times of the Cold War.”
“The bad guys are more sophisticated and more ruthless,” he said. “And our nations have an obligation for our very people to work in the interest of our shared security.”
He also added that there is an economic imperative for getting closer and stressed the need for better business practices in the region, where doing business is often difficult.
“We want to build economically sustainable economies,” Pompeo said. “And it is possible. That success begins with good policy, sound policy You all know the answer: respect for the rule of law, property rights, a business culture that is friendly to entrepreneurs and risk takers. ... We are happy to help. We want the best for your people.”
Pompeo’s visit, his first to Jamaica, came two months after Navy Adm. Craig Faller of the U.S. Southern Command also visted the Caribbean nation and raised similar concerns about security threats in the region.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 5:27 PM.
