Editorial | A new Bandung?

Last week’s call by Prime Minister Andrew Holness for policy coherence and partnerships between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, in the face of an increasingly discordant and uncertain global environment, is a welcome, and potentially significant, development.

The issue now for the prime minister is to more sharply define his concepts, translate them to a specific policy agenda, and outline a possible framework for its implementation. In other words, declarations by themselves don’t equate to action. If the PM believes that the international environment demands new approaches to global engagement, including Jamaica’s wish to be part of the “shaping” of global affairs, then the island should offer leadership on this front.

In this regard, perhaps Jamaica’s thinking ought to be beyond the Americas, but a quiet mobilising of the global south, leading, perhaps, seven decades on, to a revised, economy-anchored iteration of Bandung.

Addressing an economic and investment forum in Panama City organised by CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, Prime Minister Holness argued that the question was not whether the global order was changing but whether Latin American and the Caribbean were deliberately responding to the new circumstances rather than “drift(ing) by default”. It is in that context that he called for the region to articulate joint positions on issues ranging from climate change and supply-chain diversification to sustainable energy and digital inclusion.

“We must move from fragmented national initiatives to aligned regional priorities,” Dr Holness said. “We must shift from reacting to global change to anticipating it, helping to shape the standards and partnerships of the next decade.”

There can be no questioning of this ideal.

DID NOT ADDRESS

What the prime minister did not expressly address, however, are the forces driving the rapid disruption of an already unbalanced post-World War II global order that gives relevance to his call for regional unity and why this newspaper believes that the engagement must be broader and urgent.

In his year in office, Donald Trump has leveraged the power of the US market to impose high tariffs on trading partners, effectively atrophying the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and upending global supply chains. He has also deployed US military might to exert America’s will in several parts of the world. And the Western Hemisphere, he has reasserted the Monroe Doctrine of US hegemony, but with a more aggressive twist.

Indeed, Mr Trump’s position is that hemispheric countries should economically and politically delink from America’s perceived strategic adversaries, especially China. That for Jamaica, and several other Latin America and Caribbean countries, where China has provided significant economic support, will demand, in the near term, skilled diplomacy and a slick balancing act while they build resilience and seek greater insulation. That will not be easy.

For as Dr Holness’ foreign minister, Kamina Johnson Smith, pointed out at the same CAF conference, China is Jamaica’s “largest infrastructure investment partner” while “our longest-standing security partner is the United States of America”.

Added Ms Johnson Smith: “We have always recognised that there are some basics that are non-negotiable. We believe in multilaterialism. We’re too small not to believe in multilateralism. We believe that one country, one vote must mean something, and we continue to use our voice to that respect.”

These positions may not, as Ms Johnson Smith posited, be founded in ideological contentions between the world’s big powers. But in the context of President Trump’s strategic assertions, they are unlikely to be secured by merely building macroeconomic stability and attempting to ‘manage’ relations between the globe’s big powers.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

One option is for countries to, essentially, surrender their sovereignty, and as Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, put it, “go along to get along”. Or as Mr Carney argued, in the case of the world’s ‘middle powers’, and now Prime Minister Holness with respect to Latin America and the Caribbean, they can seek safety in numbers.

The space for manoeuvreability is even more limited for the small, developing countries in the Caribbean. In that regard, Prime Minister Holness’ instinct for enhanced partnerships and policy coordination between Latin America and Caribbean countries is correct.

The question is what that coordination looks like, and where it starts, and how it is implemented.

Dr Holness’s ideas would suggest a need for the strategic reawakening of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and a reimagined Community for Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the hemispheric body, which, unlike the Organisation of American States, excludes the US and Canada.

However, Jamaica’s, and the Caribbean’s, first point of engagement must be the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional economic integration body that is transitioning to a single market. Despite internal tensions and disagreements, and sometimes dysfunction, CARICOM has already achieved a relatively high level of integration and has a platform for coordination. That must be leveraged.

Small countries, particularly those of the Global South, that don’t want to fall within camps, must build wider alliances. In 1955, early in the retreat of colonialism, a group of countries issued the Bandung Declaration that became the operational principles of the Non-Aligned Movement and Group of 77.

Maybe a revisiting of Bandung, in a fashion appropriate for the times, should also be on the agenda.