Tomorrow Wednesday 25th March, Prime Minister Stuart Young will meet the Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss matters relating to ’third border’ - the USA view of the Caribbean. On Young’s side of the table will be Mia Mottley, the outspoken Barbados PM and Fritz Alphonse Jean, transitional head of Haiti. Rubio’s agenda is fairly transparent. He wants to ensure the US squeeze on other borders regarding matters fentanyl, cocaine and illegal immigrants do not reroute thru the Caribbean. Which may already be the case. Rubio will also want to ensure the region’s oil and gas flows do not further enrich China, do not further embolden the BRICS bloc. USA’s red herring, to be delivered in the convoluted language of capitalist-speak, will be saying Cuba’s export of medical expertise to the country’s of America’s third border, is a crime - A travesty against the free world.
Its a spiel hardly likely to impress PM Mottley. Its a hard call for the Haitian leader as they will hardly want to bite the Cuban medical hand which Haitians so depend upon at this time. T&T’s Young may well remain silent on Rubio’s ploy to side-line Cuba, thinking that it cannot be in his country’s interest, not with the Dragon Gas license hanging in limbo. Looking ahead the different agendas look pretty clear. As are the outcomes.
Stuart Young will get his license to drill, explore and sell Dragon Field output; the likely caveat being it must be sold with a US decided cap per cubic metre to the American market. Mia Mottley will take the big picture to the meeting and accuse Rubio of compromising Caribbean autonomy. Fritz Alphonse Jean will remain steadfast, citing his people’s dire need for the most basic things including medicine, in the face of Haiti’s engrained poverty.
The upside to all this is - nothing good. Mottley will probably endear herself to the Caribbean people, the black diaspora and to countries across the Atlantic but she will not stop Rubio’s plan for a US polarised Caribbean. Her loss will be one for every local interest though: Trump’s America will likely treat a singular Caribbean pretty much as just another Puerto Rico. Fritz Jean will be diplomatic. Will do as every Haitian leader has done since the Haitian Revolution - implore the developed world to assist Haiti upward from a position a certain developed country put them in.
Young’s job is admittedly harder. He has to obtain that license from the US administration; to allow Trinidad to monetise itself. He would also have deduced that Guyana and Suriname oil are already secured by the far-Atlantic markets. He’d simply tell Rubio then, that Trinidad and Tobago oil is the logical choice for America. Odds are he will get the license, win a huge plus to take to the upcoming T&T general election and fly smugly back home to preen.
If this plays out as written, the big loss here is a Caribbean one (forgive the syntax). As Trinidad and Tobago would literally be enabling the US in its agenda - which is certainly not pro-Climate. Which does not accept the science that says these islands will be enduring perpetual drought and its attendant ills, by the next century. No. If Stuart Young pulls of his license we should not celebrate. Not unless we view Haiti today as the future all should want.