A vigorous and increasingly acrimonious exchange is ensuing in business and political circles in Jamaica over just what sort of reaction the country should provide to what it says is the ill-treatment of Jamaicans travelling to its sister Caricom country by the immigration authorities in Trinidad and Tobago.
The news from Kingston earlier this week was that Jamaica’s former prime minister, now Opposition Leader Portia Simpson-Miller, was seeking to dampen a call by President of the country’s private sector organisation, William Mahfood, for the country to use its ‘muscle’ in the region to consider a halt to the importation of goods and services from the twin-island republic until it honours its obligations to respect the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services as dictated by the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
And in the light of what is now regarded in political and private sector circles across the region as Trinidad and Tobago’s periodic indifference to its obligations under the CSME, the head of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association, Metry Seaga, is calling for a re-examination of the CSME itself.
Simpson-Miller has made it clear that she supports a diplomatic solution rather than a boycott of goods though she is insistent that the right to free movement by Jamaicans under the Treaty of Chaguaramas must be upheld.
Any attempt at the kind of muscle-flexing suggested by Mr Mahfood is almost certain to have repercussions for intra-regional trade and particularly for trade between the two protagonists since Jamaica is the fourth largest market for Trinidad’s exports, purchasing approximately US$500 million annually. The argument of its private sector has been that US$500 million is a pretty hefty sum to be spending on imports from Trinidad and Tobago every year if its nationals travelling to that country are going to be harassed and if the goods that it seeks to import into Trinidad and Tobago are going to be subjected to a slew of non-tariff barriers.
There has been a measure of diplomatic activity over what the Trinidad and Tobago authorities say is the presence in the country of more than 20,000 undocumented Jamaicans, a circumstance which the Port of Spain authorities say amounts to a burden on its economy though there has been sorry little evidence that any progress has been made.
What would appear to be increasing hostility to trade with Trinidad and Tobago by the Jamaican private sector ought, presumably, to be a matter of concern to all of Caricom, particularly given what are now the increasingly frequent references to the implications of the falling out for the CSME.
And while it may be that a measure of quiet intra-regional diplomacy is ensuing at this time, that spat between Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica has not, it seems, attracted any significant attention across the region.
Interestingly enough, Caricom member countries like Guyana and Grenada ought to have a bit to say about the situation since they too have had to endure instances of shabby treatment of their nationals in parts of the region, including Trinidad and Tobago.
It seems, as well, that successive governments in Guyana have been diplomatically ignoring the increasingly insistent protestations of some local businesses over what they say have been difficulties being experienced in accessing the Trinidad and Tobago market even as goods from that country enjoy free access here.
If, as this newspaper understands to be the case, the Caricom Secretary General is playing some sort of mediatory role in the Kingston/Port-of-Spain spat then we wish him a speedy and successful result in restoring relations to something resembling ‘even keel’ between the two Caricom member countries. Except, of course, that we ought to remind ourselves that the insularity associated with separateness has always tended, intermittently, to trump the notion of regional unity and that intra-regional differences of the kind to which this editorial speaks is by no means unique to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Tensions arising over the movement of Caricom nationals between and amongst the respective states have flared up from time to time and it has to be said that successive political administrations across the region have demonstrated what may be either a patent inability or a decided unwillingness to help find solutions to a problem that is unlikely to go away on its own.
