18 June 2007

Strengthened U.S.-Caribbean Ties Focus of June 19-21 Conference

President Bush to meet with leaders of 15-nation Caribbean bloc

 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez gives a keynote speech at the Conference on the Caribbean in Washington. (© AP Images)

By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington –- President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials will meet with the leaders of a 15-nation bloc of Caribbean states June 19-21 at what is said to be the first formal conference for government policymakers and others to focus solely on policies crucial to the Caribbean region.

"Conference on the Caribbean -- A 20/20 Vision," will examine how to build economic growth and development for the betterment of Caribbean democracy, human rights, and justice.

The 15 Caribbean nations involved belong to the Caribbean Community and Common Market group, more commonly known as CARICOM. The event is being held prior to the 2008 implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. That plan calls for one large market of CARICOM’s member states to provide more and better opportunities to produce and sell Caribbean goods and services to foreign markets while attracting investment to the region.

The 15 CARICOM members are: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Conference participants will discuss promoting more Caribbean trade and tourism, encouraging competitiveness and investment, and providing better social and economic equity. 

Other topics will be natural disaster and terrorist threats to the Caribbean region, creating jobs for youth in the region, fighting drug smuggling, bringing more stability to Haiti and strengthening the Caribbean diaspora communities in the United States, which refers to people of Caribbean origin who now live in America.  People of Caribbean origin living in the United States influence the CARICOM economies because collectively they send billons of dollars in remittances home each year.

The conference will be held at several Washington venues -- the World Bank, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez will give an opening keynote speech, following remarks by OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza, IDB President Luis Moreno and Graeme Wheeler, the World Bank’s managing director.

Another conference participant will be U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which deals with trade issues important to the Caribbean.  While in Washington, CARICOM leaders also will meet with members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The State Department’s Thomas Shannon said June 14 the U.S.-Caribbean meeting will focus on “how we can improve our democracies, promote prosperity, invest in our people, and protect the security of our democratic states” from “transnational” and “ecological and environmental” threats.

Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in a State Department video presentation that the conference will offer a “vision for the Caribbean that will allow all of our governments” to build “a more prosperous and more secure region.”

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies June 15, Brian Nichols, director of State’s Office of Caribbean Affairs, said the Washington conference is an outgrowth of a “steadily improving” U.S.-Caribbean relationship.

Nichols pointed to the “Third Border Initiative,” established by the United States in 2001, as an example of U.S.-Caribbean cooperation in dealing with potential terrorist threats. (See related article.)

Nichols singled out two CARICOM members -- Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago -- for special praise for their help in breaking up a bomb plot against John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.  Several alleged plot members were from those countries.  (See related article.)

Nichols cited a number of areas of cooperation between the United States and the Caribbean, such as in aviation.  He said, for example, that all flights that go into Miami pass through the air districts of either Nassau (the Bahamas) or Port-au-Prince (Haiti).  If U.S. aviation authorities do not coordinate “seamlessly” with their Caribbean colleagues on aviation safety, “we can’t land planes into South Florida,” said Nichols.

The conference will include an IDB-hosted meeting with private sector participants that will examine how to expand U.S.-Caribbean trade and overcome challenges to the Caribbean people's health and development, such as HIV/AIDS and noncontagious diseases.

In addition, OAS will host a conference-related forum on how to utilize better the professional skills of people of Caribbean origin in the United States.

President Bush has declared June "Caribbean American Heritage Month, 2007."

More information about the conference is available on the CARICOM Web site.

The full text of the presidential declaration of June as Caribbean-American Heritage Month is available on the White House Web site.

More information on the Third Border Initiative is available on the State Department Web site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)