Confirmation of Guyana’s considerable oil reserves and the attendant likelihood of significant change in the country’s economic fortunes in the relatively near future has altered external perceptions of a country that had once been lumped by writers with the poverty-stricken countries of the hemisphere, deploying the demeaning sobriquet ‘banana republic’ in the process; never mind the complete misapplication of the term to a country that possesses none of the criteria that might otherwise place it in that category.
There is, however, reason to believe that that will change. The effect of the affirmation of the country’s oil reserves has, more than any deliberate action ever taken by government to ‘sell’ Guyana to the rest of the world, attracted major international attention to Guyana, not least in the developed world.
On Sunday the media published the message from United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulating the Government and people of Guyana on the occasion of the anniversary of the country’s independence. Secretary Pompeo’s message included the generous observation that Guyana and the United States “have been friends and partners for decades” and proceeded to “commend and encourage Guyana’s continued leadership on matters of regional concern.”
Messages of the nature of the one delivered by the US Secretary of State on Sunday are meant to serve as, among other things, coded indicators of the timbre of bilateral relations between countries from one period to the next, the tone of the communication mirroring the customary ebb and flow of relations that apply from time to time and arise out of one set of circumstance or another.
In that context it has to be said that Guyana and the United States have not always been (as Secretary Pompeo put it) “friends and partners.” In times when bilateral relations between the two countries have been testy, the language in the messages are frosty and nuanced in a manner deliberately designed to communicate the prevailing sentiments of the sender. Governments on both the sending and receiving sides are usually well-rehearsed in how these missives should be interpreted, which is precisely why they serve as useful barometers of the state of play insofar as relations between countries are concerned.
Leaving aside the familiar platitudes contained in Secretary Pompeo’s independence message, there was the brief but far more significant reference to Guyana’s anticipated “production of its oil resources” and Washington’s readiness “to assist to ensure all Guyanese will benefit,” from whatever windfall might derive therefrom. Here, the US is deploying the appropriate language to send a message to Georgetown regarding not just the US administration’s awareness of the magnitude of Guyana’s oil find and the significance of the resource for the likely future economic fortunes of Guyana, but, as well. the newly found potential geo-strategic significance of Guyana arising out of what is still ongoing confirmation that considerable deposits of oil lie beneath the country’s territorial waters.
One might add that while the United States is not the only developed country which, even now, is re-evaluating its perception of Guyana as the country’s moves seemingly inexorably towards ‘first oil,’ the language employed in Secretary Pompeo’s message must be seen as significant given the strategic importance which the US has unfailingly attached to its relations with oil-producing countries. Whether those relations are well-intentioned or otherwise is, of course, an entirely separate matter.
Accordingly, if the US is to demonstrate any consistency in its foreign policy outlook, Guyana’s oil discovery was never likely to go unnoticed. Indeed, Washington would have, at the very inception, factored ExxonMobil’s announcement of its first confirmed oil find in May 2015 into its strategic thinking. On Monday, Secretary Pompeo used the Trump administration’s independence message to Guyana to provide confirmation, if indeed such was needed, that Washington is continuing to make a strategic evaluation of Guyana in the wake of the country’s new-found oil wealth. Put differently, the fact of Guyana’s potential oil wealth, not least what is forecast as the country’s considerable reserves, places the country in an altogether altered geo-strategic light as far as US foreign policy interests are concerned.
The reasons are clear. First, there is the historic preoccupation of the oil-driven US economy with hydrocarbon resources, wherever those may be. Then there is what, in more recent years, has been the US’ zealous geo-strategic interest in the rapidly growing presence of China in Latin America and the Caribbean, not least the likely interest that China may have in ramping up its own relations with Guyana in the wake of the oil find. Finally, there are the uncertainties that inhere in the unraveling political circumstances in Venezuela, one of the US’ historic allies in the hemisphere and the possible uncertainties associated with whether friend or foe might eventually secure control of what is widely believed to be among the largest oil reserves anywhere in the world.
Whatever the domestic and external criticism which President Donald Trump’s declared “America first” outlook has attracted, the reality is that it conforms roughly to the universal adage that the practice of foreign policy starts with considerations that have to do with domestic interests. In President Trump’s case it is simply a matter of his proclivity for sometimes setting aside diplomatic correctness in the language he deploys to make his point. Trump’s supporters may argue that language is no more than a tool with which to ‘manage’ relations between and among states; in other words that it is the message rather than the medium that counts.
Secretary Pompeo’s assurances in Washington’s independence anniversary message to Guyana regarding the US’ willingness “to assist to ensure all Guyanese will benefit,’ from the returns from the country’s oil resources are welcome if only because no country is perhaps better positioned to provide the technical expertise necessary for us to optimize the exploitation of the country’s oil resources. That being said, what Mr. Pompeo proffered was a less than heavily coded rendition of Washington’s foreign policy response to Guyana’s new-found oil wealth. The underlying respectfulness of the message does not conceal the fact that the discovery of large deposits of oil within Guyana’s maritime space will mean that for the foreseeable future the US is likely to view Guyana through somewhat altered lenses.
