Albright Assures Caribbean of Economic Aid

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday promised the foreign ministers of the Caribbean that the United States is determined “to ensure that the galloping global economy does not trample small economies or leave them behind.”

As an example of this determination, she pledged that the Clinton administration will fight for special Caribbean tariff legislation that is now stalled in Congress.

Her vow came at an official meeting of the secretary with her counterparts of Caricom, the Caribbean Community, a close economic association of countries that lie in the Caribbean or border it.

Albright, in turn, heard an eloquent plea from Ralph Maraj, Trinidad and Tobago’s foreign minister, for increased investment and foreign assistance in the region. “We depend on tourism, but it is not all fun and sun in the Caribbean,” Maraj said at the opening session of the conference. “Here, real people with real lives are engaged in a real battle to find fulfillment.”

While “we are not sitting and wringing our hands in despair,” he said, “the countries of the Caribbean have been engaged in a courageous struggle to survive against ever-increasing odds in an increasingly hostile economic environment.”

The proposed Caribbean legislation would reduce U.S. tariffs on goods to the level of similar items coming from Canada and Mexico under NAFTA. The legislation was allied with a larger bill that would have given the administration authority to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to include Chile and other countries. The administration withdrew the package last year when it encountered stiff resistance in the Senate.

Albright told the foreign ministers that the administration is still committed to the Caribbean legislation, which, State Department officials said, would probably cost the U.S. $332 million over three years in reduced tariffs, especially on Caribbean textiles. “Under our constitutional system,” she noted, “we cannot guarantee its passage. But we can guarantee to fight for it. I do, and we will.”

Her session with the ministers grew out of President Clinton’s meeting with Caribbean leaders at a summit in Barbados in May. The United States and Caricom agreed to meet periodically after then. Albright informally hosted the foreign ministers in New York in October when they attended the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly. The Trinidad meeting was the first official conference.

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Thomas “Mack” McLarty, Clinton’s special counselor on Latin American affairs, also addressed the ministers, telling them that Washington is now more attuned to their problems. “You have spoken very clearly,” he said, “and we have heard you.”

Caribbean governments, for example, have complained often about new U.S. immigration laws that let the Immigration and Naturalization Service deport foreign criminals to their home countries. In 1997, the U.S. deported 4,072 people to countries in the Caribbean because of criminal convictions. Caribbean leaders maintain that these former convicts, who often left the islands when children, return unnoticed by police and immediately pursue a life of crime.

After meeting with Caribbean diplomats in Washington 10 times in the last 12 months, U.S. officials set up a system to provide Caribbean immigration officials notice and a history of returning former convicts.

This clearly failed to satisfy the ministers. A joint U.S.-Caribbean communique issued after the Monday meeting said the issue “continues to be a matter of grave concern to Caribbean nations” and would remain “under close observation.”

But the communique praised “the multiple actions and cooperation” between the U.S. and the Caribbean nations in the war on drugs. Since the Barbados summit, the United States has provided $7.5 million in aid for regional anti-drug and anti-crime efforts. This year, the U.S. will supply six C-26 cargo planes, two Piper Navajo planes and four 82-foot patrol boats for anti-drug operations. Joint programs have been established to combat money laundering and to share intelligence on drug traffickers.

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Albright told her counterparts that the U.S. will provide $2 million in aid to countries hurt by a ruling of the World Trade Organization that they no longer can receive favorable tariff treatment from the European Union for the bananas they export. The U.S. money will fund small enterprises, rural development and training programs so these countries can move away from dependence on a single crop.

Maraj, describing bananas as “critical to the economies of the region,” said he and his colleagues were pleased with “the commitment of the United States to work with us to find a solution to this problem.”

The ministers agreed to meet with the secretary of State informally at the next opening of the U.N. General Assembly in October and hold their second formal meeting in Washington next year. Those who met with Albright came from: Antigua and Barbuda; the Bahamas; Barbados; Belize; Dominica; the Dominican Republic; Grenada; Guyana; Haiti; Jamaica; St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Suriname; and Trinidad and Tobago.