The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) was the first to make a clear statement (issued on March 2nd) condemning the policy position by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the US plans to sanction – by way of the non-renewal or revoking of visas – the citizens of other countries who simply did something to improve their fellow citizens’ health and help save their lives. What are they supposedly guilty of? Facilitating and/or arranging for Cuban health care professionals to provide health care services to their citizens. We are pleased that several Heads of Government of CARICOM have taken a strong principled position on this issue. This is not an issue on which to play local political games. It’s a matter of principle as this is our defending our right as a sovereign nation to make decisions in the best interest of our citizens.
We now make another statement on matters of international relations.
Yesterday, the UK government announced that it now requires citizens of T&T to obtain a visa if they wish to enter the UK, even for an in-transit stop. In the view of the MSJ this is an example of the old colonial Britain. With all the much vaunted British intelligence and supposed collaboration between the UK and T&T it should have been easy for the British government to swiftly address those who applied for asylum, sent back those who falsely claimed that status and/or acted on T&T intelligence to identify those who have or are suspected as having criminal backgrounds here.
But for those who understand what is happening in the UK and Europe, the driving factor in this decision is the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. This has impacted on elections in the UK and Europe; it drove the Brexit vote; and was most disgustingly evident in the wave of deportations of West Indians who came to Britain when we were still colonies and they were therefore British citizens (the so-called Windrush generation) who could not “prove” their status in the UK. While this took place under previous Conservative governments, it is notable that the current PM Keir Starmer waffled in his defence of the first black female Labour MP, Dianne Abbot. Starmer’s political move to the right explains this anti-immigrant stance.
Last week, the People’s Republic of China held the Third Session of the 14th National People’s Congress – its Parliament. During the Session, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi stated that “the ties between China and Latin America and the Caribbean are not based on geopolitical calculations nor aimed at establishing spheres of influence; but rather on the principles of mutual support and solidarity, which is genuine south-south co-operation.”. The Foreign Minister went on to say that “What people in Latin America and the Caribbean want is to build their own home, not to become someone’s backyard; what they aspire to is independence and self-determination, not the Monroe Doctrine”. Minister Wang Yi affirmed “China’s commitment as a pillar of the multilateral system and a defender of the Global South, recalling its history of fighting against colonialism and hegemonism”. This is in stark contrast to Secretary Rubio’s statements.
Trinidad and Tobago and indeed, all of CARICOM, needs to examine the respective positions of the US and China as we address the new global reality of the Trump presidency. The US has a very definite colonial and imperial agenda: take back the Panama Canal; make Canada the 51st state; take over Greenland; trade aid for ownership of Ukraine’s mineral wealth; impose tariffs in order to bully countries into accepting its demands. This agenda has a simple objective – expand ownership and control of more and more of the world’s resources in order to make America great again. It is an extension of the 200 plus year old Monroe Doctrine which supposedly gave the US the right to intervene anywhere in this hemisphere if it (the US) believed it was in their (the US) interest. This Doctrine “justified” US military intervention, some open and some covert, in many countries resulting in the overthrow of elected governments (Guatemala in 1953, Chile in 1973; Dominican Republic in 1964); support for brutal dictatorships in virtually every Latin American nation; and the destabilisation of others including Jamaica in the early 1970’s.
China, on the other hand, has not invaded any country. It has not tried to overthrow any government. It is not fighting any wars and has not been funding other countries’ wars. Unlike the US, therefore, it has used its resources for its own development and to support the development of other countries in the “global south”. This is one reason why China’s economic growth has been able to outpace the US and Europe in the last three decades to the point where it is an economic and technological powerhouse. China’s modernisation and growth occurred in a shorter timeframe than the US or any European nation or for that matter of any of the empire’s in history, all of which were based on colonial and violent conquests. China’s rise has been a peaceful one. This also explains why China has been able to invest in and or provide support for other countries development plans. And it does so without political strings attached like the US when it threatens to cut off aid unless a country complies. The US and the EU “blacklist” countries that don’t comply with their rules.
America First has meant that in the space of less than two months the US:
- Withdrew from the Paris Accord – the global framework to deal with the climate crisis;
- Withdrew from the World Health Organisation which means to less funding for its work;
- Cut funding to the UNFPA which, according to Panamanian born Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director says, will result in putting at risk the lives and health of tens of thousands of vulnerable women and children
- Declared just days ago in the UN General Assembly that “the United States rejects and denounces the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and it will no longer reaffirm them as a matter of course.”
This statement was made by one Edward Heartney during debate at the UN General Assembly on a Resolution to create an International Day of Peaceful Coexistence and reaffirming the 2030 agenda. Three countries voted against the Resolution: the US, Israel and Argentina all of which share extreme right wing, neo-fascist positions.
Now the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (and the SDGs) was approved by all 193 member states of the UN in 2015. Its objectives include: “reducing poverty and hunger, achieving gender equality and advancing measures against climate change”. This is what the US is now openly denouncing! The US doesn’t care that this will worsen poverty; put people’s health and lives at greater risk; increase global income and wealth inequality and accelerate the climate crisis.
Trump claims that other countries have been “ripping off the US” by unfair trade and economic relations. This is a lie. Indeed, the date shows that a significant contributor to the US trade deficit is US multinationals producing outside of the US to maximise profits and then “exporting” their products to the US. So while the US as a country had a trade deficit this was “offset” by the profitability of US corporations boosting their stock prices and returning wealth into the US. The US empire benefitted for more than a century from huge flows of resources – natural, financial and human – from the global south into the US. US multinational companies amassed tremendous profits from exploiting our (global south) natural resources (oil, bauxite, copper etc), our agricultural products; our cheap labour.
The US and other powerful western countries manipulated the trading arrangements so that our exports of raw materials (sugar, cocoa, bauxite, oil etc) fetched low prices while we had to pay high prices for the finished products that they sold to us. That has been the history of colonial relations between the north and the south. And even after a new international trade agreement – the World Trade Organisation – was established in 1994 it benefitted the global north more than the south as there was never a level playing field.
Big multinational companies and powerful countries could always sell us at a lower price, often by dumping, than our producers. Just ask our famers! The banana industry in the Eastern Caribbean was devastated by US companies taking action to stop our access to the EU market. But when Antigua and Barbuda took the US to the WTO and won, the US refused to abide by the decision. Might was right!
China, on the other hand, has established – for those who wish to join –the Belt and Road Initiative whereby Chinese investments are made to improve infrastructure and/or establish new production activities. One concrete example of this is the Phoenix Park Industrial Estate and a plant that produces high quality luggage for export. At the same time, China has been involved in many major development projects, the most recent of these being the Central Block at the Port of Spain hospital and the new Tobago airport terminal.
The US, with its mega billionaires, is seeking tech and data dominance with AI. Their companies make billions in profits. Hegemony is all about economic power being concentrated in a few hands. China just upset that apple cart when it launched DeepSeek, an AI application that is open source, meaning that users pay little or nothing. For China, technology and AI should be accessible to everyone so that development doesn’t become more and more unequal. China’s strategy is to build alliances in the global south by, for example, expanding the BRICS group. This approach is based on multi-polarity, that is, a world that has more than one strong economic pole.
Those who believe in and/or support the Trump agenda must tell the country precisely what this means for Trinidad and Tobago, CARICOM and the Global south – mass deportations, sanctions, land/country grabs, the use of economic and military power to bully others into submission? The words of Errol Barrow, former Prime Minister of Barbados, bear repeating: “we will be friends of all and satellites of none” and of former Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop who said “we are in nobody’s backyard”.
In this environment T&T and CARICOM needs to up its collective diplomacy and strengthen ties with countries of the global south (BRICS plus Latin America and Africa) as well as by finding points of commonality with countries of the north (Canada) that are now in conflict, even temporarily, with the US. Our diplomacy must be a priority area and needs to be proactive as we seek to leverage our strengths as countries that have supported progressive change the world over in order to create new economic opportunities. Those are the buffers that we need even as we continue to engage with the US.
Movement for Social Justice
David Abdulah
Political Leader
