US Secretary Of State Rubio’S Meeting With Regional Prime Ministers In Jamaica

• Meeting with Caribbean partners to strengthen our hemisphere's security and counter transnational crime – @SecRubio

By Caribbean News Global

JAMAICA / USA – Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with prime minister Mia Mottley, Haiti Transitional Presidential Council president Fritz Alphonse Jean, Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Stuart Young and Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness, Wednesday to discuss regional issues and US interest.

Meeting with prime minister Mia Mottley

Secretary Rubio underscored the Trump administration's commitment to supporting Barbados and all CARICOM member states in countering transnational threats , including by designating the Venezuelan criminal network, Tren de Aragua, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) consistent with their domestic authorities.

Secretary Rubio and prime minister Mottley discussed regional security efforts , such as the United States partnership with Barbados under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative with efforts focused on countering illicit narcotics and firearms trafficking, prosecuting transnational organized crime, and strengthening regional security cooperation.

The secretary and prime minister discussed energy cooperation , with the prime minister making an economic case for the region premised on energy.

Discussing Haiti, the secretary commended prime minister Mottley's leadership in the effort to stabilize Haiti, and expressed his interest in working closely with her on that issue.

“Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley has been a strong partner to the US in countering illicit drugs and firearms trafficking, prosecuting transnational organized crime, and strengthening regional security. The Trump administration remains committed to cooperating with Barbados to keep countering these threats. This means a safer America, a safer Barbados, and a safer region,”

Meeting with Haiti Transitional Presidential Council president Fritz Alphonse Jean during his visit to Kingston, Jamaica, secretary Rubio noted the dire security situation in Port-au-Prince and commended the extraordinary bravery of the Haitian National Police, and all international personnel supporting the Multinational Security Support mission, for their work to establish stability and security in the country. Secretary Rubio reinforced the importance of coordination across the Haitian government to fight the criminal gangs terrorizing the Haitian people.

Meeting with Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Stuart Young in Kingston, Jamaica, secretary Rubio thanked prime minister Young for Trinidad and Tobago's cooperation to promote energy security, deepen our security partnership, and enhance coordination on the deportation of illegal aliens .

Secretary Rubio and prime minister Young discussed the Trump administration's decision to name the dangerous Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and encouragement for regional partners to take similar steps, and encouraged prime minister Young to join the United States and other Caribbean democracies in limiting malign influence in the region.

At the secretary of state Marco Rubio and Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness joint press availability, a couple of topics were discussed.

The first is trade. The world, as has been closely followed, the president is in the midst of realigning American global trade policy, primarily to reset global trade in a way that's fair to the US after 20 or 30 years of what we believe is unfairness – not when it comes to Jamaica, but broader. And from that will come real opportunities to create new alignments and new trade arrangements and new trade opportunities, and I believe Jamaica is one of those places that together we both stand to benefit.

In particular, we discussed supply chains. And we ask ourselves: Why, if so many of these products are destined for the North American market, why are so many of the productive capacities located halfway around the world? And there's a lot of different reasons why that's happened. But it makes all the sense in the world to see more productive capacity, more manufacturing, more industry, relocated into our hemisphere. We certainly have the labor and the population and the desire to do so in our hemisphere. It's closer to the end markets.

And so, we want to pursue opportunities to make that possible, and clearly I think Jamaica is one of those places that could benefit; and the prime minister has that vision for the country, and the creation of not just jobs, but jobs that pay even better than the jobs that maybe some could find now. So it's an opportunity, I think, would be mutually beneficial, and we're going to actively seek and look for ways to make that possible.

“I also think there's extraordinary opportunities for investment,' said Rubio. And we talked about it, whether it's – particularly in energy. The United States is going to be producing a lot of liquefied natural gas, which is a very clean fuel that we have in abundance and that we seek to export. And it's also critical, by the way. You cannot have manufacturing without reliable and affordable energy . And so it's one of those things that I think potentially we could continue to partner on along with other things, whether it's mining opportunities off the seabed – in essence, to utilize all of the resources of the country in a responsible way that protects your environment, that protects your natural beauty, but at the same time is generating income and opportunity of employment for the people. Ultimately, that's – governments have two prime responsibilities: the safety and prosperity of their people. And your prime minister and his government is very focused on those two priorities.

We did talk about tourism because obviously, it's a significant part of your economy. And we pledged we were going to go back and re-evaluate the travel advisories as they currently stand to ensure that they do reflect the reality of the new numbers, what the numbers show. Because you've made very impressive progress in your general numbers overall when it comes to the murder rate and so forth, but in particular with those travel advisories are designed to American travellers. And I think we need to analyze that and just ensure that the status we're currently in accurately reflects the status quo and takes into account the progress you've already made this year and made last year, year over year, which I think is one of the highest numbers in terms of reductions that we've seen of any country in the region.

We have to talk about security , and I think that the prime minister has phrased it in a way that I think is very beneficial, and that is – he used the term“global war on gangs.” Maybe we'll find some other phraseology in the United States to describe it, but we're talking about the same problem. It's amazing, if you look across the region – and really, many parts of the world – how many of the threats we face in the world now that once came from a ideological terrorist organization or from a nation state, are now coming from non-governmental criminal organizations, who in some cases are more powerful than the governments in some of these countries. And we've confronted this issue.

It's a challenge in Mexico. It's a challenge on the border between Venezuela and Colombia. It is the challenge in Haiti, and it's been a challenge here. And it's a multifaceted challenge. They are transnational for a number of reasons. One, as an example, is – and we've acknowledged this in our conversations that lead back to my time in the United States Senate – how many of the guns and the weapons that are being used by gangs to commit acts of violence here in Jamaica are purchased in the United States and then shipped here. And, we want to commit to doing more to stopping that flow at the same time as we do more to commit to increasing your capacity. That's the other thing I underlined.

What we're talking about here when we talk about American assistance is America helping Jamaica build its own capacity, its own ability to confront these challenges and solve these problems because security is a baseline for everything. And to that end, we have some good things to announce [today] here.

We've – the JOLT Fusion Center that is starting up again, and that's been even further strengthened . That's going to help address lottery scamming. We can announce this synthetics detection equipment for Jamaica's forensic labs; another counter-gang recruitment program that we seek to launch as a result of our visit here today; and announce something that I think is really important, and that is software, intelligent software, for the law enforcement here in Jamaica to combat gangs – things like night vision goggles as well, technology. And we look to do more. And on that end, let me touch on a topic that we talked about just a little bit. Well, I'll touch on what the topic – then I'll get to this final one.

You mentioned upskilling and helping, how can we – it's a topic we hadn't touched on directly extensively before. We talked about it [today]. We seek to go back and find ways that we can partner to create opportunities for skills training so that if those companies – and we can attract those companies if we can attract – whether it's a logistics center or manufacturing – to come to Jamaica. There's a workforce that's been equipped with the skills needed.

Now, we face this challenge domestically as well. We need to do that ourselves. But there may be things that we can do in collaboration with one another. And this touches on the issue of aid – very controversial in the United States, but it's one of the reasons why I wanted to come here [today] because it in many ways highlights exactly what our vision for aid moving forward is.

The United States is not getting out of the aid business. We are going to be providing foreign aid. The difference is we want to provide foreign aid in a way that is strategically aligned with our foreign policy priorities and the priorities of our host countries and our nation states that we're partners with. In essence, how that would work, how it has worked in the past, is USAID or some other entity would come into a country and say, this is what we think you need. And then they go out and hire an NGO that maybe are the ones that convinced them that that's what you need, and they give them a bunch of money and they come into the country and they do things. Some of these programs are fine. They're nice things. Other times, not so much. Nonetheless, that's how it used to be.

How we want it to be in the future is that our embassies are involved with the host government, our hosts, the – our partners. And we ask them, what are your needs? And we provide assistance geared towards the needs of the nation-states that are hosting us and that we're partnering with. At the end, our partner in Jamaica, our partner all over the world, is the government. It's the host government, who have a clear vision for the future. And to the extent that our foreign aid can be helpful, it is in furtherance of what the people of your country have elected you to carry out.

Here there are a lot of things. We've just described some of them. What should our foreign aid be geared towards? It should be geared towards looking for opportunities to increase skills training, looking for opportunities to attract investment and business and trade, and looking, obviously, for opportunities to expand on your own domestic intelligence capabilities. We are going to have foreign aid that is aligned to our foreign policy, and our foreign policy is going to be aligned to our mutual shared interests with the partners that we have all over the world.

And I can tell you, Jamaica's an incredible partner to the United States. It's very cooperative on a number of fronts. And we will continue to work together, and we're going to work closer than we've ever worked before because we are now going to have US programs for foreign aid that are going to be aligned with the vision that you've elected your leaders to carry out for your country. And that benefits us both.

... And we want countries in the world, and we want countries in the region, to identify being close to the United States as something that is beneficial and helpful – helpful to develop, helpful to grow, and frankly helpful so that one day many countries can serve – and I think – and Jamaica is already doing this – as a model of what other countries would seek to emulate, whether it's on security, on trade, on investment, on skills acquisition and improvement. These are the things that we want America – relationship with our partners to look like. And I can think of no better friend in the Caribbean and frankly in the Western Hemisphere than Jamaica and your government, prime minister. [...]

• Source: US Department of State

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