Editorial | CARICOM and Carney

Mark Carney’s speech in Davos on Tuesday should be required reading – or listening – for all heads of government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

While Mr Carney, Canada’s prime minister, didn’t mention Donald Trump by name, his remarks were about the American president’s collapsing international order and how middle powers, including Canada, should navigate for their survival in a dangerous and uncertain world where the seeming received truth is that “the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must”.

“And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety,” Mr Carney said.

“Well, it won’t!” he said.

Rather than obsequious surrender therefore, Mr Carney’s prescription is that countries build “principled and pragmatic”, but values-based, and carefully calibrated, alliances to protect their interests, in the knowledge that old global order has passed.

“So, we’re engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes,” Mr Carney said. “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”

Added Mr Carney: “We are calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values, and we’re prioritising broad engagement to maximise our influence, given and given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses and the stakes for what comes next.”

To be clear, the members of CARICOM are not Canada – a developed country of 41 million people, with the world’s 10th largest economy and a GDP of US$2.3 trillion. Canada’s per capita income is close to US$55,000.

HIGHLY SKEWED

CARICOM’s combined population is approximately 20 million. Its GDP is less than US$100 billion. Moreover, the population and wealth of member states are highly skewed.

CARICOM’s most populous member is chronically unstable Haiti, which has 11.8 million people or three times as many as the next most populous member, Jamaica. But Haiti per capita GDP is a mere US$2,200.

While Jamaica’s per capita GDP is two-and-half times Haiti’s, it is a third that of Trinidad and Tobago, which has half of Jamaica’s population. Similarly, some of the smaller tourism-dependent CARICOM members in the eastern Caribbean are per capita wealthier than a few of their larger partners.

So, as mostly small islands and developing states with limited resources and open economies that are largely tourism-dependent, CARICOM members have, on its face, limited space for economic manoeuvre. These constraints have been exacerbated by the uncertainty that Mr Trump has inserted in the global environment with his unilateral imposition of tariffs, his by-passing of, or withdrawal from critical international institutions, and his insistence on America’s right to use its power how it will.

The button is the ongoing disintegration of the old global order, which everyone knew was imperfect and unfair, but in which small countries had a sense that they could find some cover.

Mr Trump replacement, thus far, is an unvarnished return to Greater Power politics, exemplified by America’s intention of exerting its military might as it sees fit, to establish dominance over other states, including geopolitical partners and military allies. In the Western Hemisphere, the new approach is epitomised by Mr Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine and insistence of America’s hegemony in the region. His removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, his declaration about US control of Venezuela’s oil and his threats against Cuba highlight some of the vulnerabilities faced by CARICOM.

NOT AT RISK

Canada, on its face, is not as exposed or at risk, as Jamaica and its CARICOM partners. It has a centuries-old partnership – economic, military – with the United States, with which it shares a 525 mile border. Their bilateral trade is over US$1.3 trillion a year.

Yet, Mr Trump has unilaterally hiked tariffs on a raft of Canadian goods and has mused about making Canada America’s 51st state.

Even as he seeks to maintain Canada’s relations with the US, Mr Carney made clear that he is rapidly seeking to widen his country’s global economic partnerships.

That is part of the context in which he signed a trade agreement last week with Xi Jinping that will see Canada drastically reduce tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. China will lower duties on Canada’s Canola oil. Among other things, Ottawa and Beijing will also cooperate on clean energy.

Similarly, Canada has signed trade agreements with Qatar and is negotiating pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

There are lessons in Canada posture for CARICOM.

The region is not, like Canada, a middle power with vast resources. But its answer to the challenges it now faces is not to passively accept its fate – going along to get along.

As this newspaper has argued, CARICOM must seek to leverage trade agreements it already has with Canada, the European Union and Britain and to build new alliances in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

The region must also pursue opportunities for common cause with the middle powers, which, as Mr Carney warned, have to find ways to be at the table together, lest be “on the menu”. It would help either group if there were others with them.