Robert Buddan
A RECENT MSNBC TV poll said that 62 per cent of respondents felt John Kerry would be better at dealing with other countries compared to the 38 per cent who felt that George Bush would. Former US President, Jimmy Carter, said last week that in his travels around the world, he found that the US was held in the lowest esteem than at any other time. What does all of this mean for the Caribbean specifically? Caribbean-born politicians in the US are much more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.
Caribbean-born voters in New York vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party and the next largest bloc of Caribbean voters exist in Florida who (except for Cuban exiles) I suspect also vote Democratic. It can be assumed that Caribbean-born voters in the US as a whole prefer or vote more for the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is also the party supported by minorities and has come to style itself as the party of diversity. African-Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Large majorities of Hispanics, Jews, Chinese, and Catholics vote Democratic. In 2000, more women (who are more victimised than men) voted Democratic and so did the poorer Americans. These are the same profile that people around the world have. Yet, US polls all seem to agree that, at the moment, Bush is heading for victory. There seems to be a big gap between how Americans feel about Bush and America and Kerry and the world compared with how the people of the world feel about the two candidates.
US AND THE CARIBBEAN
The US presidential election in November is actually a very important election for people around the world. It might be more important than the election results in many national elections. What the US does clearly affects what governments can do for their own people. The question remains whether a Bush or Kerry administration would make all that much difference for us in the Caribbean. But all American administrations make a major difference on a wide range of policies like immigration, relations with Cuba and Haiti, multilateralism and respect for the United Nations, deportation of criminals, trade, respect for international law (such as the treaty on global warming and the International Criminal Court), drug trafficking, international crime and terrorism.
For more than a decade, the US has taken little interest in the region, except for some specific issues. There has been no consistent developmental policy towards the Caribbean, or Latin America for that matter.
In 2000, Georges Furiol, Director for the Americas Programme, testified before the US Congress that, "there was no distinct US policy on the Caribbean." The Caribbean only received attention from the US in times of emergency. There was no integrated policy only 'miscellaneous interests'. Policy was more agency-based (Drug Enforcement Agency, Coast Guard, Department of Defence), and sometimes driven by specific communities (Haitian, Cuban, English-speaking Caribbean). He reported that the feeling in the region is that the US is selective and not always a willing ally to the region's small countries. Byron Blake of the CARICOM Secretariat feels that policy-makers in Washington had very little knowledge of Caribbean affairs and that this made the Caribbean-Florida link even more vital as a conduit for influence in Washington.
Kerry has criticised the discriminatory immigration policies of the US by which poor Haitians fleeing persecution are turned back while Cubans are welcomed for ideological reasons.
MARIJUANA
Kerry wants to see the scientific evidence of the medicinal benefits of marijuana before deciding whether it should be legalised. Bush opposes legalisation.
Kerry supports an international treaty to reduce global warming but Bush has withdrawn the US from the current treaty, the Kyoto Treaty.
Kerry favours a ban on assault-type weapons and opposes immunity for gun makers faced with lawsuits arising from the wrongful use of weapons. Bush has been weak on enforcing gun control laws.
Kerry would be better for the Caribbean on global warming, greater respect for the UN and international law and the International Criminal Court and for debating trade treaties rather than handing them down unilaterally.
NEW COMMUNITY OF
THE AMERICAS
Kerry proposes a New Community of the Americas for Latin America and the Caribbean. In this community, neighbours would work together toward shared goals and with mutual respect. They key elements of this policy are trade agreements with social clauses, a social investment fund, and increased support for democratic governance.
A Kerry administration will be better for the Caribbean but it will be an American administration and will represent America's interest first. The labour and environmental lobbyists who back the Democrats want protectionist clauses in trade agreements. While Kerry is fairly liberal on trade, John Edwards is not. Kerry himself has been vocal about outsourcing American jobs and has named Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in his attacks against tax evasion and bank secrecy practices.
Kerry's social investment fund for the Americas is welcome but its promise of US$500 million is not much when you consider the poverty of Latin America and Haiti. Besides, spending cuts to contain the budget deficit might reduce this amount. In discussing this New Community of the Americas, Tom Barry of the Interhemispheric Resource Center pointed out that aid to the region's military and police has increased from US$161 million in 1996 to US$874 million in 2004. American administrations have been more willing to spend on wars against communism, drug trafficking and terrorism than on people and development. The result is a backlash against free market regimes in Latin America as poverty in the region increases.
Kerry would provide stronger support for democratic governance. He has been outspoken about America's role in Haiti and Venezuela. A Kerry administration might provide more humanitarian assistance to Haiti and ensure a democratic transition but there will probably be no change in attitude towards Cuba. We can't say if threatened sanctions against the right of Jamaican hoteliers to invest in Cuba will continue.
Kerry seems supportive of the role of the neo-conservative National Endowment for Democracy which funnels money to conservative groups in the region to destabilise governments that the US does not like. At the same time he says he will not interfere with the democratic choices that people in the region make and that the US will not take sides in elections.
SILENCE ON ISSUES
Kerry has been silent on many trade issues that upset governments and peoples in the Americas, such as US agricultural subsidies, protected US markets, and dumping to protect America's uncompetitive industries. But his administration will offer more opportunities for dialogue on the principles around which a New Community of the Americas might be based. What he is actually able to do will depend on domestic issues like the state of the US economy, the trade deficit, the state of unemployment, and the political balance between Democrats and Republicans in Congress after the elections.
We need to hear if small Caribbean economies will be given more time to adjust to the free trade regime envisioned for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and we need to know what new plans will emerge to counter narco-criminals and their gun running enterprise based on mutual respect for security and sovereignty.
The Democrats under Clinton were not particularly helpful or interested in the region and we cannot take it for granted that Kerry will be. We only know that the Bush administration has been more confrontational and threatening. At any rate its near-obsession with Iraq has blinded it to any grand plan for the Caribbean. As the presidential debates proceed we will see if the Caribbean is important enough to come up in those debates.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Mona, UWI. You can send your comments to Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.
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