Farewell meeting for outgoing Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley... as CARICOM leaders begun their 48th Regular Meeting on Wednesday, discussing a wide range of issues aimed at strengthening the regional integration movement. Peter Richards has the details from Bridgetown, Barbados.
00:00The final preparations are taking place as CARICOM leaders meet in Barbados for the three-day summit.
00:09The official opening ceremony takes place Wednesday evening with the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres,
00:17and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, as the special guests.
00:23Following the ceremonial opening, the leaders will discuss matters ranging from the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, the CSME,
00:31to Washington's policy of deporting Caribbean and other nationals living illegally in the United States.
00:38CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General for Foreign and Community Relations, Elizabeth Solomon,
00:44describes the summit as historic, saying that the discussions will be quite critical.
00:49It's also important that the region comes together and has one voice on many issues,
00:56and this is really an excellent opportunity under the guidance of Prime Minister Motley,
01:02who has taken up the chairmanship as of the beginning of 2025. There's a lot happening this year.
01:09Solomon also spoke on CARICOM's role in Haiti, where criminal gangs are seeking to take complete control of the capital Port-au-Prince,
01:17and efforts are being made to hold elections that will last until 2016.
01:23I do understand that the public does not have an appreciation of how significant the role that CARICOM has been and continues to be in Haiti,
01:35but I assure you that it is critical, it has been pivotal, not just from the outset in terms of bringing together all the international partners around the table
01:46to have a discussion about what would be the best transitional process, including the stakeholders.
01:52But CARICOM remains in the lead in engaging with all of the stakeholders and in ensuring that this is a Haitian-led process,
02:02in advocacy, although we do rely heavily on international partners, to also be strong advocates for increasing the amount of financial support
02:15and security support and humanitarian support that is afforded to Haiti. But we continue to play a really important role.
02:25I think the nature of our role is one in which we can't talk about it publicly. It's not for us to be speaking about the discussions that we have.
02:37But I assure you that all the partners rely on us very heavily.
02:41Trinidad and Tobago Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister Dr. Amory Brown supports the position outlined by the senior CARICOM official.
02:49He said it is important that CARICOM maintains a presence in the French-speaking CARICOM country.
02:56Haiti is an ongoing, chronic challenge. I'm looking forward to Haiti's participation in this meeting at some level.
03:06And we've always said CARICOM has maintained a very principled position on Haiti and has exerted considerable resources.
03:15It's human capital. It's leadership. It's energy. It's good offices. It's an eminent persons group.
03:22And it's commitment to working with the Haitian community. It's the Haitian leadership to try to bring solutions to the table.
03:34Some progress has been made in the recent past in terms of building a degree of political consensus.
03:42Some steps were made with the transitional presidential group, prime ministers in place, etc.
03:53But the security situation remains very concerning.
03:57The United States of America has been playing a role and really must play a role.
04:04And this is one of the matters that will be discussed as well and how best we can advocate and leverage for that important role of the United States of America,
04:18given some of the early signals that may have been sent on this issue already.
04:23Ten years ago, when Dr. Keith Rowley became prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, he spoke of the slow movement on the implementation of the CSME.
04:33And as the prime minister prepares to demit office, his foreign affairs minister, Dr. Amory Brown, gave part of Spain's views on the progress since.
04:43We have advanced our position significantly.
04:46We've done a lot of the necessary work domestically with respect to our legislation.
04:53And we have been participating very actively in the subcommittee meetings chaired by Prime Minister Mia Motley.
05:03Trinidad and Tobago is fully committed to the CSME and the free movement regime.
05:11And that position is consistent at this time.
05:16The summit will provide for the regional private sector to raise with CARICOM leaders a host of matters, including transportation, climate change and U.S. CARICOM trade.
05:27The chief executive officer of the CARICOM private sector organization, Dr. Patrick Antwine, says he's elated that a special announcement will be made with regards to air transportation.
05:40Well, if I gave you, it wouldn't be a surprise to the community. It must be that heads must report on that as an outcome.
05:47It is really for them that we have to reserve that opportunity.
05:51I wouldn't push you to say what that means less in terms of expense, in terms of travel into CARICOM.
05:59No, no. I'm still focused very much on the movement of agricultural products and goods.
06:07Movement of goods and that announcement has to do with that. Right.
06:12And I think it's really important.
06:14Dr. Antwine also spoke to what has been regarded as the inward looking trade policy of the Trump administration.
06:22The issue is not to move away from multilateralism. Others have the option of doing so.
06:27I don't think we can essentially drive our economic development just based on adherence to one, you know, philosophical and in this case, trade policy option as opposed to another.
06:40We have to essentially embrace several of those options at the same time.
06:45How we build South-South trade, how we build hemispheric trade with partners in Mercosur, in the Central American bloc, in the Andean bloc.
06:55How we build trade with other developing countries.
06:59All these and other issues are expected to be fleshed out over the next three days.
07:05Reporting for CCN TV6 from Barbados, I am Peter Richards.
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