Excerpt from The Diplomat
After centuries of centrality in Europe’s empire-building competition, the Caribbean – with notable exceptions (e.g., the Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1983 American invasion of Grenada) – has largely faded from the geopolitical scene. In 1823, a rising United States promulgated the Monroe Doctrine to secure the region for American “precene, power, and passage.” More recently, in April 2019, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton declared, “Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well,” although the practical implications of his comment for the Caribbean remains an open question.
Given the inherent importance of the Caribbean to the United States, several trade and aid strategies have been advanced. These include the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983 under Ronald Reagan and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act of 2000 under Bill Clinton. Together these form the core of what is called the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), but these should be properly seen as security politics. A 1983 CBI report by RAND stated it explicitly: “by geopolitical fact, the Caribbean Basin lies within the North American security zone.”
The CBI, encompassing 17 countries, is essentially a program that gives participating countries preferential access to the U.S. market for certain categories of goods. On the surface it appears as if the Caribbean does $35 billion in trade with the United States; but a large proportion of this is “phantom trade.” That is, most everyday goods in the Caribbean are produced in China but appear as U.S. exports. The U.S. is essentially a transshipment point for Chinese goods and including all of this as U.S. trade is misleading. As a result, the Caribbean can potentially create direct trade links with China and bypass the U.S.