A cold wind starts to blow

New winds are blowing through the Caribbean. Some may welcome what they bring, others may not.

Four events in the last 14 days illustrate how the region is being captured, probably irretrievably, by a new, if so far ill-defined, cold war that involves the US, China, Russia and Europe, which for strategic reasons are seeking geo-political and geo-economic influence in the region. 

The most high-profile demonstration of this came in Washington’s decision to invite just five Caribbean leaders to a meeting with President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on March 22nd. A second illustration was a pre-arranged visit to the Dominican Republic just one day later by the Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua. The third relates to Venezuela and a low-key exchange organised with Canadian support between a delegation of CARICOM foreign ministers and Juan Guaidó, the country’s self-declared Presi-dent. And the fourth was a Royal visit to Cuba, which indirectly underlined the growing transatlantic rift between Europe and the US.