In a message intended as much for the West as for the English-speaking Caribbean, as a whole, Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, through her recent official visit to Venezuela, has unmistakably signaled that she intends to take her country’s foreign policy wherever its vital interests may lead it. Indeed, by signing agreements in Caracas that embrace areas that include energy, agriculture and air transport, the regional Head of Government who currently boasts by far the highest international profile among Caribbean Community Heads of Government, has sent a clear message to the region and to the rest of the world, as a whole, that national interest is the foundation stone of her administration’s foreign policy.
Through her recent official visit to Caracas, specifically at this time, Prime Minister Mottley would have looked past Venezuela’s current decidedly current rocky relationships with both the United States and Western Europe. She would have, as well, without ignoring CARICOM’s long-standing support for Guyana in its territorial controversy with Venezuela, opted not to let that circumstance stand immovably in the way of the benefits which she believes Barbados can derive from a constructive bilateral relationship with Venezuela. In the case of the rocky relationship between Caracas and both United States and Europe, Prime Minister Mottley openly criticized the sanctions imposed on Venezuela, which have served to devastate the country’s once rock solid economy. In that context she reportedly described the West‘s posture towards Venezuela as constituting “unilateral coercive measures.”
Truth be told, there is almost certainly, no other country in the region that would even think of addressing the West in that manner. The contents of the end of visit communique signed at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas appeared deliberately designed to hit the right notes where Barbados’ interests are concerned. They included the Mottley administration’s wish for the resumption of air traffic between the two countries and the continuation of a bilateral experience that has allowed Barbados to learn from the Venezuelan experience in urban agriculture, cheese production, and implementing fair prices. Crucially, Prime Minister Mottley used her visit to Caracas to highlight the importance of energy cooperation between Venezuela and the Caribbean, acknowledging in the process, the “key role” which the earlier Petro Caribe Agreement had played in significantly easing the considerable strain on the economies of the English-speaking Caribbean during the tenure of the Hugo Chavez administration, and beyond.
In sum, if it is unclear just how the Barbados Prime Minister’s recent visit to Caracas will go down in Washington and in the various western European capitals, her visit would have sent a message to the West, as a whole, that the limitations of its global power, notwithstanding, the Caribbean is not altogether without the political leadership that is prepared to draw definitive lines in the sand in the matter of what the region considers to be its vital interests.
