Caricom Chairman Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley has begun championing a ‘buy local, buy regional’ campaign as the apparent global trade war shows no signs of easing.
Even as she expressed a lack of confidence that ‘cooler heads will prevail’, Mottley warned this will have a major spillover effect on the regional tourism sector and affect people’s ability to travel. The Caribbean is home to some of the world’s most tourism-dependent economies.
In a statement issued Friday, the Prime Minister called on the regional private sector and the tourism sector to work with governments to collaborate on an immediate tourism strategy.
“To our hoteliers, our supermarkets and our people, my message is the same. Buy local and buy regional. I repeat, buy local and buy regional. The products are better, fresher and more competitive in many instances. If we work together and strengthen our own, we can ride through this crisis. We may have to confront issues of logistics and movement of goods, but we can do that too.”
The regional leader warned that heavily import-reliant Caribbean economies faced serious economic damage from the crisis and needed to be strategic in how they navigated this period.
As she gave insight into the full extent of the economic problems facing citizens, Mottley suggested that no one will be spared.
“If Europe and China and the U.S. and Canada and Mexico are all putting tariffs on each other, that is going to disrupt supply chains, that is going to raise the cost of producing everything, from the food you eat, to the clothes on your back, to the phone in your pocket, to the car you drive down the road, to the spare parts that you need for critical infrastructure. That means higher prices for all of us to pay, and sadly, yes, this will impact all of us, regardless of what any of our Caribbean governments will do.”
Mottley said all states needed to work together, especially at this time, and that fighting for political gain will not serve any purpose. Instead, she said the region needed to redouble efforts to invest in Caribbean agricultural production and light manufacturing.
“We must grow our own and produce our own as much as possible. We can all make the decision to buy healthy foods at the market instead of processed foods at the supermarket.”
The Caricom chairman said the grouping must deepen ties with Africa, Central and Latin America, and renew relationships with older partners in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Canada. She said the community simply cannot rely on one or two markets.
“We need to be able to sell our Caribbean goods to a wider, more stable global market…If we come together, put any divisions aside, support our small businesses and small producers, we will come out of this stronger.”
The Caricom Chairman said the grouping must also re-engage urgently, directly, and at the highest possible level with officials in the US.
“These small and microstates of the Caribbean do not, in any way or in any sector, enjoy a greater degree of financial benefit in the balance of trade than does the United States. In fact, it is because of our small size, our great vulnerability, our limited manufacturing capacity, our inability to distort trade in any way, that successive United States administrations, included, and most recently, the Reagan administration in the early 1980s went to great lengths to assist us in promoting our abilities to sell in the United States under the Caribbean Basin Initiative.”
She issued a direct message to the US, stating, “We are not your enemy; we are your friends.”
“I say simply to President Trump: our economies are not doing your economy any harm in any way. They are too small to have any negative or distorted impact on your country. So, I ask you to consider your decades-long friendship between your country and ours. And look to the Caribbean, recognizing that the family ties, yes, are strong. Let us talk, I hope, and let us work together to keep prices down for all of our people.” (BT)
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