Editorial | Widen discussions on US-Jamaica relations

It is noted that the Jamaican and US governments have provided only scanty details of the December 11 talks in Kingston between Prime Minister Andrew Holness and senior officials of the US Department of Defense.

But in the context of recent actions by the United States which could hold serious implications for Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his administration should be more forthcoming and transparent about those discussions, as well as invite a wider dialogue on a possible contextual approach to US-Jamaica relations.

Indeed, this newspaper looks forward to a Jamaican foreign ministry green paper on the subject, even though it appears the foreign minister, Kamina Johnson Smith, was not at the meeting, to which the Americans sent Patrick Weaver, a senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth; Joseph Humire, the acting senior Secretary of Defense for the Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs; and Phil Hegseth, senior adviser to the Secretary for Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Dr Holness was supported in the talks by Audrey Marks, a minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), who is a former ambassador to the United States; and General Rocky Meade, the permanent secretary at OPM.

“We had productive discussions and agreement on strengthening USA-Jamaica partnership, regional security and areas of mutual national interest for expanded cooperation,” Ambassador Marks said in a post on her Instagram page, providing the most substantive public review of the talks.

The United States, she noted, remained one of Jamaica’s “earliest and longest-standing allies”, which had provided early and significant support to the island after Hurricane Melissa, which devastated the western third of the island in October.

INDISPUTABLE

The importance of Jamaica maintaining a good and healthy relationship with its powerful North American neighbour and the world’s largest economy, is indisputable.

Indeed, over a million people who identify as Jamaicans or Jamaican-Americans live in the United States, and the US provided nearly 70 per cent of the tourists who came to the island in 2024, fuelling an industry whose gross income was US$4.3 billion. Before the Hurricane, the projection was for tourism earnings to pass US$5 billion.

Further, of the US$3.35 billion (16 per cent of GDP) in remittances Jamaica received last year, 68 per cent came from Jamaicans in the United States. That could rise this year in the wake of the hurricane.

However, how Jamaica conducts its relations on the global front could be impacted by the qualitatively different environment that has been created by the Trump Administration, such as in President Donald Trump’s assertion in a recent national security strategy document of the US’ right to unchallenged dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Or, as the document framed it, it’s a reawakening of the Monroe Doctrine with the “Trump Corollary”.

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the strategy document says.

“The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence—from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined,” it adds.

America’s renewed muscular approach to the region is already playing out in the southern Caribbean Sea where a US armada, ostensibly sent to combat drug traffickers, is enforcing a partial blockade of Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, the Americans say is illegitimate. The US military has also blown up alleged drug smuggling vessels – killing at least 105 people – in the Caribbean Sea and south Atlantic.

CREATED DIVISIONS

The American action in the southern Caribbean has created divisions in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional economic integration and functional cooperation group. Trinidad and Tobago, under Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has been all in with the Americans. While others, including Jamaica, have been circumspect in their response, the majority signalled their wish for the Caribbean to remain a zone of peace.

Ambassador Marks’ stint in Washington gives credence to her involvement in the recent meeting with the Americans, while General Meade, as a former chief of defence staff, in addition to his role as permanent secretary, would have added weight to his support of Prime Minister Holness, especially in the absence of the national security minister, Horace Chang, who is ill.

But given the wider context of present and emerging US policy, the absence of Ms Johnson Smith, without a clear rationale, seems inexplicable. Dr Holness, therefore, should advance on the issues that were on the table, the specific agreements reached on they are to be implemented, and specific roles that CARICOM may have, against the backdrop of the focus on “regional security”.

But there are other critical economic matters at stake. For instance, the United States has made it clear that China (which has invested heavily in Jamaica, and provided large loans to the island for infrastructure development) is the “non-hemispheric competitor” that it wants to relinquish “strategic assets” in the Western Hemisphere and pushed out of the area. Which would place Jamaica directly in Washington cross-hairs. For example, a Chinese company is the minority partner (49 per cent) in the firm that operates Kingston’s transshipment port.

There is much to strategise about.