What do we in the Caribbean Community want from the United States at this time? Over the last two years, we have seen a major meeting, in 2007, between Caricom Heads of Government and the United States President, in which extensive consultations seem to have been had. And since the various changes of government in the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica, and the change in leadership of the existing government in St Lucia, we have seen a special invitation extended to the leaderships of those countries to consult with President Bush. Of these latter Prime Minister Golding was unable to attend; it may be that, in the tradition of Jamaican leaders, he may, for domestic prestige reasons, be seeking a separate audience with the President.
It was indeed the last Jamaica Labour Party leader in government, Mr Edward Seaga who, on taking the leadership of Jamaica from Michael Manley in 1980, assumed a special role for Jamaica vis-à-vis the United States in pleading for a new relationship with the Caribbean through what became the Caribbean Basin Initiative. In this, he was successful, in addition to getting in the following years, substantial financial support and support in the IMF and the World Bank, towards the stabilization and reorganization of the Jamaican economy after the years of Manley’s socialism, which had become anathema to the Americans.