THERE’S A MAJOR ISSUE in Washington that Barbados and its neighbours need to watch closely.
It is the impact of the draconian budget cuts the Trump administration is planning to make at the State Department, amounting to billions of dollars.
The reduction of about 28 per cent that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, have endorsed would grossly undermine the viability of a range of important programmes across many regions, including the Caribbean, and areas such as health, the environment, security and education.
Barbados’ ambassador to Washington Selwin Hart said the cuts were likely to have “a drastic and negative impact on many programmes in the Caribbean aimed at reducing youth crime and violence, climate resilience, clean energy and health, which are all (partly) funded by USAID”.
A few initiatives are very evident: HIV/AIDS efforts that are saving lives in Barbados, Benin, Sri Lanka and elsewhere; climate change programmes protecting the shorelines of Jamaica and St Lucia from the ravages of raging tides and monstrous hurricanes; much-needed scholarships and training that give young people in emerging nations a leg up; or fighting against drug trafficking. Not to be overlooked are the effective measures enabling women of child-bearing age to plan their families. Name the projects, they are in danger of being decimated.
The Barbados Family Planning Association has already succinctly warned what may happen if Washington goes ahead with plans to switch billions of dollars from USAID to the Defence Department to make “America Great Again” and to build a wall along the Mexican-American border.
Add to the equation the Caribbean security initiative developed by both Eric Holder when he was US Attorney General during the Obama administration’s first term and by CARICOM attorneys general, including Freundel Stuart before he became Prime Minister. The awful truth would hit home.
The planned cutbacks say a lot about the US, admired worldwide for its generosity of spirit and humanitarian instincts. The new direction in Washington suggests a withdrawal from that interest in feeding the poor in Africa, curbing the spread of disease across the Caribbean, slashing the flow of illegal drugs to its neighbours or reducing the environmental drivers that help spawn storms, hurricanes or floods in our region.
Clearly, a lot will depend on Hart and the CARICOM ambassadors who have been working closely together on laying the groundwork for engagement with the new administration and engaging members of Congress following passage of the United States-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act. This holds out the promise of a fresh, long-term strategy to spur economic and social development in the Caribbean.
We trust Mr Hart and his Caribbean diplomatic colleagues will succeed.
