Understand why the relatively small, poor, and at times fragmented Caribbean region should cross the United States’ radar, with a new comprehensive approach.

Written together with Cyrus Veeser (Madrid) NUMEROUS COMMENTATORS have pointed out that throughout the past decade, the American government has paid less and less attention to Latin America. However, the possibility of a reversal of this pattern by President Barack Obama’s administration cannot be thrown out. If this is indeed to be, why should the relatively small, poor, and at times fragmented Caribbean region even cross its radar?

For the current American administration, the most important thing is to recognize that the Caribbean is as domestic an issue as dealing with a conglomerate of different autonomous states. Decades of a consistent flow of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and even the small Caribbean islands have led to the creation of extensive diasporas within the American borders. A large part of the subregion’s trade is with the United States, and at the same time the remittances sent back home by Caribbean immigrants residing in the United States are an increasingly essential component of these nations’ GDP.

BRAIN DRAIN

Likewise, the political, economic and social conditions on the Caribbean islands have repercussions in the United States, whether it be the brain drain of Caribbean university students (close to 80 percent of young graduates leave Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada and Haiti), the impact of the illicit, cross-border activity that uses the island territories as a bridge and distribution centers for illegal goods such as narcotics and small arms, or the money laundering generated by those markets. Of no less importance are the challenges that the political transitions in Haiti and Cuba pose to American foreign policy, as well as matters related to democratic governance in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and other countries in the region. In short, the Caribbean and the United States are, without a doubt, interdependent, and such interdependence is both positive and negative, presenting both challenges and opportunities.

In recent years, American political leadership has made it so that any policy affecting the Caribbean automatically impacts some sector of the American population in the same way that any change in policy towards Caribbean immigrants has an impact in their countries of origin. This coming together has tended to reinforce the negative consequences of interdependence, while at the same time neglecting opportunities for cooperation. Limiting the flow of remittances to Cuba, repatriating the “yawlers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yawl)” arriving from Haiti who come ashore in Florida and deporting Caribbean immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States are unilateral policies that are a response to political concerns within the country, but have proven to be the cause of dramatic negative consequences in the region. This is the chief reason why it is important that a new rapprochement take form, one which avoids unilateralism once and for all and at the same time recognizes the interdependence of the United States and the Caribbean.

The economic ties between the United States and the Caribbean go back a long way, but have become increasingly more complex, in that the former remains the subregion’s most important trade partner. In 2007, for example, the northern country was responsible for three quarters of the Dominican Republic’s imports. American nationals also constitute a growing component of Caribbean tourism, the most important industry in the region. However, the impact of American foreign policy in this transnational economy has not always been beneficial.

GOOD MONEY VERSUS BAD MONEY

It would be difficult for any other region in the world to be as dependent on remittances coming from the United States as the Caribbean is. In 2006, Caribbean immigrants in the United States sent some 8.37 billion dollars back home. In the Dominican Republic, more than twenty percent of homes receive remittances regularly, while in Jamaica, remittances average some 700 dollars per person each year. Remittances represent nine percent of the Dominican Republic’s Gross Domestic Product, while in Haiti and Jamaica it accounts for 21.1 and 18.3 percent, respectively. As such, resources coming from Caribbean immigrants in the United States constitute a pillar of the region’s economy, just for the simple fact that these workers constitute an essential workforce in key sectors of the American economy (such as health care workers), principally in the urban areas of Boston, New York and Miami.

“The economic ties between the United States and the Caribbean go back a long way, but have become increasingly more complex”

However, there is a negative side to transnational finances. Illicit drug trafficking, well-established in the region, has grown in scope and complexity, evading control mechanisms in order to supply the insatiable American market. In 2001, narcotrafficking in the Caribbean generated approximately 3.3 billion dollars, equivalent to 3.1 percent of the region’s GDP. In 2006, drugs represented five percent of the regional GDP, reaching some five billion dollars. As with remittances, drug profits have become an essential source of income for some subterranean economies in the Caribbean, but it also brings the obvious negative consequences to their societies and governments.

THE IMPACT OF AMERICAN POLICY

Regarding the matter, the United States has employed contradictory policies in the two areas. A 2008 report highlighted that “The United States’ policies have had a strong impact on the volume of remittances”; for example, by affecting the legal status of the immigrants in the country and reducing how much they can produce, and by limiting the amount of time that they can stay in the United States. The Bush administration’s policy of reducing the value of remittances sent to Cuba by Cuban-Americans was widely denounced internationally for its negative humanitarian effects. It is not strange that the current Obama administration’s repeal of this despicable measure, which was made even harsher in 2004, constitutes the first signal of rapprochement in his government’s reconsideration of relations with Cuba. A change in this pattern regarding relations would also be well received by the rest of the countries of Latin America, most of which support Cuba’s return to the international community.

As for the rest of the Caribbean, until very recently, the anti-immigrant spirit promoted by conservative sectors in the United States led to an aggressive policy of deportation of undocumented workers, a policy that could generate negative results since, by reducing the sources of remittances, there is an even greater incentive for the region’s emigrants’ pillaging.

“It would be difficult for any other region in the world to be as dependent on remittances coming from the United States as the Caribbean is”

Similar secondary consequences have characterized the pressure that the D.E.A. and the Department of State put on the Caribbean nations so that they be more proactive in the fight against organized crime, while several administrations have cut off economic aid to these countries and constantly repatriate criminals convicted in the country. The Caribbean states need more resources, not less, so as to be able to strengthen their national institutions, especially those that provide citizen security and justice and and promote democratic governance. More than simply repatriating convicted criminals, the United States could contribute to and create programs that make it possible for these citizens to be reintegrated into the social and economic societies of their respective countries. Likewise, in spite of the fact that criminality in the region constitutes one of the American authorities’ most serious worries, the United States remains the principal supplier of light arms to the Caribbean. The majority of these arms are used by criminal groups in the small countries in the region. Another important step taken by the present administration has been the recognition of this situation, publicly expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her recent trip to Mexico. There is no doubt that for the Caribbean governments and societies, the formulation of control measures regarding these legal and illegal arms exportations towards their territories would represent progress in minimizing regional insecurity factors, while also creating a space for working collaboration between the countries. Likewise, the traditional bringing together of the region’s socioeconomic problems through militarizing the responses has also proven to be inadequate and dysfunctional with respect to its goal of developing efficient anti-crime initiatives in the region, above all because for the emerging Caribbean democracies, still marked by serious institutional weaknesses, these paradigms have helped weaken civilian control of its security forces even more, with the drag of a long history of political and institutional autonomy, impunity and corruption.

WASHINGTON’S NEW ROLE

There is no doubt that democracy has taken root in the Caribbean, where – with the exceptions of Haiti and Cuba – citizens have elected civilian governments for the past three decades. In spite of this, democracy is still very far from being institutionalized, given that many if its governments continue to be plagued by corruption and inefficiency. Even more, the growth and increasing complexity of criminality and violence has given rise to the justification of iron fist policies, with an emphasis on punishment more than on preventive and proactive programs. These policies of force undermine democracy due to the extralegal and indiscriminate use of force. In Haiti, many of the institutions indispensable for the consolidation of democracy have collapsed, and the United States has barely played a secondary role in a humanitarian rapprochement. Throughout the Caribbean, the fundamental issue is strengthening both democracy and economic development. In countries in which the richest ten percent of the population takes home between forty and fifty percent of the national income, and there is an extremely high criminality rate, support for democracy tends to lose importance to the daily fight for survival.

“Constructing a new, synergic, respectful and healthy relationship between the United States and the Caribbean requires a responsible leadership”

The deterioration the democracies and models of development in the Caribbean could bring multiple negative consequences to the United States. As such, Washington has a lot of reasons to actively promote stability, economic growth and peace in the Caribbean, despite the fact that the United States is currently experiencing one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. This crisis – which is certainly not exclusive to the country, nor to any region in particular -, and the austerity that it imposes on the American government, could easily translate into an approach that weakens the subregion even more. At the same time, the recession in the United States is already impacting the Caribbean economies. In this sense, a proactive involvement by the United States is as necessary as it is challenging, and simultaneously difficult.

A PREFERENTIAL SEAT AT THE DIPLOMATIC TABLE

In short, the present global crisis could provide an opportunity to give a boost to more symmetrical relations in the region, in line perhaps with what Franklin Delano Roosevelt advocated for with his Good Neighbor policy for the region when he took control of the government during the worst moment of the Great Depression. Constructing a new, synergic, respectful and healthy relationship between the United States and the Caribbean requires a responsible leadership in Washington, one capable, for example, of both demonstrating commitment to human rights and expressing concern for eradicating criminality.

“A very positive step forward in this direction would be to begin to see the Caribbean not just in terms of a third border”

While it rejects unilateralism, the new American leadership should look for a common ground with the Caribbean and Latin American governments, around security policies, and against organized crime. A very positive step forward in this direction would be to begin to see the Caribbean not just in terms of a “third border”, but rather as a necessary partner that could turn into an active agent capable of occupying a preferential seat at the diplomatic table.