Jamaican-American relations in a globalised economy
published:
Sunday | July 6, 2008
Audrey Marks, Contributor
Manley and Kissinger
I CANNOT recall one occasion since the emergence of the United States (US) as the dom inant superpower in a globalised economy that the Jamaican Government has convened a forum to discuss Jamaica/US relations. The recently held Jamaica Diaspora conference seems to be one of the few occasions at which this subject is discussed. This is all the more incredible for the fact that for over a century, US trade and investment policies have been so critical to Jamaica's development.
major trading partner
The US became Jamaica's major trading partner in the last decade of the 19th century, when the island was still a British colony. After the collapse of the sugar industry in the middle of the 19th century, it was the American market, together with US entrepreneurship and capital which made Jamaica the leading producer of bananas. Jamaica's tourism began as an offshoot of the banana industry as American visitors came on the steamships which transported the fruit. Today, the United States provides the largest number of tourists to our island. In the post-World War II period, the American interest was the critical factor in the development of Jamaica's bauxite industry, and by Independence in 1962, Jamaica was the world's leading producer of bauxite and alumina.
Over the same period, Jamaican migration to the United States so increased that today, the US is 'home' for the largest number of Jamaican citizens who reside outside of Jamaica. Such is their earning power that their remittances account for the single-largest inflow to the Jamaican economy.
Politics versus Economics
Beginning with Norman Man-ley's invitation to the White House in 1961 for discussions with President John F. Kennedy, a one-to-one meeting between the prime ministers of independent Jamaica and US presidents became an established precedent.
A major opportunity to enhance Jamaica's importance to its major trading partner came in the '70s, when the United States sought to utilise Jamaica's influence in the developing world in the conduct of its foreign policy. Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, came personally to visit Prime Minister Michael Manley and seek his support for US foreign policy in Africa. He was followed by Roslyn Carter, the wife of then US President Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, in the political context of the times, the opportunity was not seized to advance Jamaica's economic interest.
'non-alignment' path
Instead, Prime Minister Michael Manley chose a path of 'non-alignment' and closer relations with socialist countries. Hence, by the end of his tenure in 1980, Jamaica's relationship with the United States had reached an all-time low.
The opportunity to rebuild came in 1980 when the new prime minister, Edward Seaga, became the first head of government to be invited by President Ronald Reagan to the White House. As a result of this visit, the US sponsored a major initiative with the objective of making Jamaica a showpiece for private enterprise. US support for the administration resulted in an increase in official capital inflows from US$314 million to US$649 million in one year.
Simultaneously, the World Bank increased its grant to Jamaica by 300 per cent, and by the following year, Jamaica had become the largest per capita recipient of World Bank loans. Further benefits from the relationship were realised when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made a three-year extended fund facility pledge of US$698 million to Jamaica, the maximum allowed under the IMF quota system.
However, whereas Seaga's politics was in alignment with the US, his statist economic policies were at variance with the US insistence on private sector-led development.
With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the triumph of international capitalism and the emergence of a globalised economy, in which the US is the only superpower, Jamaica no longer exerts a marketable poli-tical influence in international affairs. To compound our predicament, we have none of the critical natural resources to attract the major investors in the globalised economy. In short, we neither have political influence nor economic clout.
This is the reality which places the relationship between both countries at its present low level. Since Prime Minister Seaga's visit to the White House in 1986, no Jamaican prime minister has had that level of one-to-one audience with the president of the United States. For the past two decades, Jamaica, as a part of the English-speaking Caribbean, has had one breakfast meeting with each president. The visit of Vice President Bush in the '80s was the last by a senior member of the US administration to Jamaica in an official capacity.
Our current, prime minister, Bruce Golding, is yet to have discussions at the highest levels of the US administration.
We must begin by recognising that the old relationship cannot be restored in the new environment created by globalisation. It is at the level of investment, and through mechanisms created by the private sectors of both countries, that any meaningful progress in the building of a new relationship is going to be realised.
Unfortunately, at the level of the Government, we seem to be still of the view that the relationship with our powerful North American neighbour is to be judged by its contribution to the State's coffers. Such contributions ended with the 'Cold War'. In the new paradigm, the objective of the US is to create more powerful private sectors aligned to its global economic interest.
improve relationship
We need to conceive of Jamaica as one large enterprise and to determine the areas in which an improved relationship with the United States can further our mutual interests. On the basis of this agenda, our government would then move to facilitate meaningful contact between the Jamaican private sector and its North American counterparts. Our tardiness in moving in this direction is like an Eastern European State discounting the importance of Russia, or an Asian country failing to recognise the awesome power of China.
Prime Minister Golding now has a real opportunity to break with the past and begin to rebuild Jamaica-US relations within the framework of the new paradigm. He might want to take into account the fact that increasingly, Jamaican migrants to the United States over the last three decades have included the cream of our professional and managerial strata, who not only occupy important positions in the United States, but are now beginning to exert real political influence in important states like New York and Florida.
The Jamaican entrepreneurial class needs to be more proactive in exploiting the opportunities which come with our proximity to the most self-confident, successful and sophisticated capitalist class that the modern world had seen.
Audrey Marks is CEO of Paymaster Jamaica Ltd & president of the American Chamber of Commerce Jamaica.
