Journal of Diplomatic Language
JOURNAL OF DIPLOMATIC
LANGUAGE
JDL II:1 (2005)
"We have no choice":
The shift in the discourse on the Caribbean's joining the FTAA*
by
Diana Thorburn
Department of Government
University of the West Indies, Mona
*An earlier version of this paper was presented for the panel on "Globalization in the 21st Century Caribbean: Contemporary Perspectives and Debates" of the Caribbean Studies Association 29th Annual Conference, 31 May - 3 June 2004, Frigate Bay, St. Kitts.
ABSTRACT
In 1994 Guyanese president Cheddi Jagan held Bill Clinton's hand up in the air in a victorious gesture, celebrating the agreement to join the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 2003, Sir Shridath Ramphal, at one time the lead negotiator for the Caribbean in the FTAA negotiations, lamented that the Caribbean "had no exit strategy [from the FTAA negotiations], but desperately needed one."[1] In this paper I trace the origins and trajectory of CARICOM's commitment to joining the Free Trade Area of the Americas, from the 1994 CARICOM Heads of Government Summit, to date. I explore how the discourse shifted from one of enthusiastic optimism, to one of the FTAA being a burdensome cross that has been imposed on us, which we "have no choice" but to bear.
In December 1994 at the Miami Summit, Guyanese president Cheddi Jagan held Bill Clinton's hand up in the air in a victorious gesture, celebrating the agreement to join the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 2003, Sir Shridath Ramphal, at one time the lead negotiator for the Caribbean in the FTAA negotiations, lamented that the Caribbean "had no exit strategy [from the FTAA negotiations], but desperately needed one." [2]
The aim of this paper is not to examine whether or not CARICOM countries should join the FTAA, nor is it a debate about the merits and demerits of the FTAA in and of itself. The goal is to trace the development of a major political-economic idea and decision from its enthusiastic inception, to ten years later, when it is often repeated that, "we have no choice" but to join. Ultimately, I conceive of the examination of this particular issue as a case study in attempting to understand how contemporary Caribbean political leaders make and take major economic policy decisions.
From an analysis of newspaper reports, and speeches by Caribbean leaders, I trace the rhetoric and tone as regards the FTAA since its inception in 1994, to date, 2004. I have used newspaper reports and speeches because I am interested in the way in which the FTAA has been presented to the public, and the public's information would be that which is presented via the news media, or via attendance at public forums. I have so far been limited to the news archives of the Jamaican newspapers, and so the coverage is somewhat biased towards Jamaican news reports, particularly in the 1990s. This can (and hopefully will) be remedied with field work in other islands. Thanks to the internet, I have managed to get media reports on the FTAA from other CARICOM country media houses, though these are mainly for the past couple of years. Communications between the Caribbean's chief negotiator, Sir Shridath Ramphal and CARICOM Heads of Government and Trade Ministers have also been excerpted. I have not included the rhetoric from the unconditionally upbeat and promising declarations that our leaders signed their names (and in so doing, our countries) to at the end of virtually every hemispheric meeting where the FTAA was discussed.
What do I consider a "Caribbean leader"? Elected officials, especially politicians and ministers of government, ambassadors, and other persons who are inarguably influential in shaping public opinion and government policy. These other persons include the heads of private sector and business organizations, trade unions, as well as public intellectuals and scholars whose utterances are immediately reported in the news, and thereafter considered gems of wisdom by many.
The predominant ostensive reason for Caribbean ambivalence on the FTAA is the fear that Caribbean countries, being so small, will not be able to compete or even participate effectively in the FTAA, and their economies will be swamped by the larger member countries in the grouping. The "small size issue" has been on the table since the very beginning. The initial declaration specified:
We recognize that economic integration and the creation of a free trade area will be complex endeavors, particularly in view of the wide differences in the levels of development and size of economies existing in our Hemisphere. We will remain cognizant of these differences as we work toward economic integration in the Hemisphere. (First Summit of the Americas. Declaration of Miami, December 19-11, 1994.)
I specify this because the current tone of the discourse towards the FTAA goes beyond merely the small size issue, even though it is often couched under that heading.
What I find is that up until 1998, aside from the small size issue, there was widespread support at the political, governmental and business levels for the FTAA. The general tone was positive and hopeful. In fact, in many instances of reported statements, the FTAA was held up as a panacea for the region's economic and social ills. After 1998, however, the discourse on the FTAA shifts subtly, but significantly, from virtually unqualified optimism, to skepticism, and in some cases to downright opposition.
The FTAA in 1994-1995: A Cause for Celebration
The FTAA was agreed to the Miami Summit of the Americas in December 1994. The reactions vis-à-vis the FTAA from Caribbean heads of government directly after the Summit were captured in a news report just a couple of days after the Summit:
CARICOM has always recognised that all of us would want to subscribe to a free trade [agreement]. I think setting the timetable 2005 gives everybody enough time to come onboard and certainly by the CARICOM comes to negotiate as a group. I think we should have taken the necessary decisions that would have geared us for full participation.
Jamaican Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson.
There is now a consensus that the chief vehicles for development are integration and trade. The Caribbean has no reservations in joining that consensus.
Barbadian Prime Minister, Owen Arthur.
The region should be moving quickly now to restructuring its economy to take advantage of trading blocs.
St. Lucian Prime Minister, John Compton.
Dominica's Prime Minister Eugenia Charles was reported to have said that CARICOM could be ready to join FTAA by the year 2005.[3] Cheddi Jagan has been credited with being one of the leaders who made concrete proposals for hemispheric integration at Miami in December 1994.[4] Richard Bernal, who later became the head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), a few months later characterized the decision as having "embraced the vision of free trade."[5]
The FTAA does not attract much coverage in the public media again until mid-1995. A series of articles in the Jamaican media about the FTAA highlighted the promise of economic growth and development that was ahead. The main champion of the FTAA in the initial years after the Miami Summit was Anthony Hylton, who was then the Parliamentary Secretary in the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the spokesman for CARICOM in the negotiations. In 1995 he, in various speeches and addresses, "urged deputy trade Ministers and senior officials from Latin America and the Caribbean to strive to build a Free Trade Area,"[6] stated that "a new trading 'club', the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), is being formed, and Jamaica cannot afford to be outside this club,"[7] declared that the FTAA could be the "single most important force in raising the level of development and the standards of living of the countries of the hemisphere,"[8] and asserted that "Jamaica has no choice but to join."[9]
Bernal, who was then the Jamaican ambassador to the U.S., and the chairman of the Working Group on Smaller Economies, and who in 2001 took over the job as chief negotiator from Ramphal, held a similar line in his public pronouncements on the FTAA. In 1995 he wrote about the FTAA:
In [countries] embracing this free trade vision, the 34 democratically elected heads of government at the summit laid the foundation for sustained economic growth and hemispheric integration early in the coming century.[10]
This rather sanguine (particularly relative to a few years later) attitude was echoed in Jamaica by the then-Minister of Industry, Investments and Commerce, Paul Robertson called for further trade and economic liberalization:
[F]ailure to forge ahead with plans for deepened free trade relations and the development of a set of norms for trade in the hemisphere, could result in the area lagging behind efforts in other parts of the world. […] Jamaica believes that [regional integration] efforts must continue, to ensure that the goal of hemispheric free trade is reached by the year 2005.[11]
In 1996, there were glimmers in the public discourse, not so much by elected leaders, but by private sector figures, and by international organization officials, that joining a free trade agreement such as the FTAA would not all be roses. Nevertheless, by end 1996, Barbadian Prime Minister Owen Arthur stated that "integration into the global economy is the best option for developing the Caribbean, and added that his region is committed to and involved in hemispheric negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americans (FTAA) by the year 2005, as was first outlined at the 1994 Miami Summit of the Americas." [12]
In February 1997, just the day before he died, Guyanese president Cheddi Jagan stated:
As I see it, given current global trends, there is no alternative but to combine our human and other resources as we seek to achieve a friction-free harmonious and collectively beneficial Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that will be characterized by the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers.[13] (Emphasis mine.)
The Secretary-General of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, echoed this a couple of months later. He considered that involvement in the FTAA was a "top priority" for the Caribbean, and that the Caribbean region that had "no choice" but to work to achieve the best possible arrangements with the FTAA. [14]
In an April 1997 speech, Sir Shridath Ramphal was if not upbeat, then at least undisturbed:
Lomé V is part of the process by which we engage the wider world to improve our own prospects within it. So are NAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and Mercosur. [… .] We have no option but to become so engaged. To drop out was never an option, however much island imagery conjures up illusions of self-sufficiency. In the twenty-first century it will be even less an option than ever it was. […T]he quality of our lives depends increasingly on our relations with that wider world.[15] (Emphasis mine.)
This speech was given just two weeks after the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) was established in April 1997, with Ramphal as its head. Indeed Ramphal himself, upon his appointment, stated that:
[While] the task for all of us is a monumental one, and the international environment in which it is to be carried out is less propitious to us than it has been for many a time past… [this] is merely a recognition of realities; it is not a prologue of despair.[16] (Emphasis mine.)
Late 1997: Rumbles of Dissonance
By September, just four months later, Ramphal's tone had shifted. Joining the FTAA, he said, would not "solve problems of development because all the players at the negotiating table [we]re not equal":
We are not sufficiently prepared mentally, psychologically for this new kind of world nor are we prepared in policy terms and institutional terms.[17]
A month later, Ramphal was even more doubtful of what had been presented as the FTAA's developmental promise:
It is in this masquerade of a borderless world of limitless opportunities that we have to make our way. And here it must be said that while liberalization, globalization, the ascendancy of market forces all hold dangers for many of the world's poor countries, for the more dynamic among them… these new phenomena of the global economy do present opportunities. The Caribbean may be dynamic, but it is without size; so the challenges to us are all the greater. They are essentially challenges of preparedness and negotiation. [18]
Sir Shridath himself retrospectively identified 1997 as the year when "Caribbean leaders began voicing concerns about globalization and the new global economy; it was regarded as heresy, if not worse." [19] Despite Ramphal's doubts, Caribbean leaders still saw promise. Anthony Hylton was buoyant in July 1997:
These negotiations, which are warranted by the rapidly changing international economic environment, will test the measure of the region's capabilities and our viability as individual nations and as an economic integration movement. CARICOM member states must prepare to participate in such a way as to make good use of the opportunities which are presented through these channels.[20]
As was Owen Arthur in October, who actually "urged the US to speed up the legislation on the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA) agreement," and suggested to US congressional leaders that "instead of waiting for all countries to be ready to be included in the arrangement… the FTAA should proceed immediately with countries which [we]re ready." [21]
While mentioning the importance of consideration for small economies, Bernal too remained positive:
All of the countries which will be signatories to the FTAA Agreement, especially the smaller economies, must participate in defining the mechanisms by which the smaller countries can best take advantage of the opportunities offered in the FTAA. Such an approach is essential to the ability of these countries to enjoy the increased investment flows which are expected to result from the adoption of trade reforms and enhanced access to larger markets. [22]
But the more negative sentiment that Ramphal espoused had begun to be picked up by private sector spokespersons. For example, Felipe Noguera, then the CEO of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) spoke of "a changing global environment which could result in the destruction of some of [our] economies," and "warned that the region will have little choice, but to try and defend sectors of the region, 'which quite frankly will not survive in the absence of preferential market access'." [23]
1998-2000: Rumbles turn into rolls
In 1998 we first notice a sharp change in the discourse. What happened in 1998? Primarily, the formal launch of FTAA negotiations in April. But there was a hint of doubt prior to that: In March 1998, Ramphal noted, "we cannot be sure it (the FTAA) will happen or if it does that it will be good for us. […T]he benefits to us [are] far from self-evident," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 23 March 1998.)
The CARICOM Secretary General spoke about "the damage that these reciprocal trade agreements could do to vulnerable Caribbean economies," and "CARICOM countries and CARICOM companies will be the losers in the FTAA if they just sit by and do nothing."[24] The leader of the opposition in Jamaica, Edward Seaga, also picked up on this more hesitant sentiment. Jamaicans, he claimed in his contribution to the Jamaican budget debate in 1998, were "being kept in the dark about what to expect from global and regional discussions" regarding trade, among which the consequences "could be dramatic shifts in the export markets of domestic industries".[25]
The smaller CARICOM member states, namely the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) members articulated a much clearer argument on their hesitation in joining the FTAA. For example, in a 1998 official statement by St. Kitts and Nevis to the World Bank's Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development, their representative coherently outlined what was at stake for OECS countries in a larger trading bloc such as that proposed in the FTAA. [26]
Yet when the U.S. appeared to hesitate on "fast track" (a legislative procedure that would grant U.S. trade officials the authority to undertake negotiations on trade agreements without them having to go through the constitutionally mandated and lengthy Congressional processes), Bernal wrote an op-ed piece in a Washington newspaper where he stated:
The FTAA process must not stop or wait for the US to have fast track authority. It must go forward with the commencement of negotiations as soon after the Santiago Summit as possible. The heads of governments must accept the recommendations of the trade ministers to begin negotiations by September, 1998. In so doing, they will accelerate a process that will directly benefit the livelihood of the hemisphere's 775 million inhabitants.[27] (Emphasis mine)
At around the time the "real" negotiations began, Ramphal included in his communications to Heads of Government selected clippings from European newspapers on the imminent demise of capitalism. This can be interpreted as a sign of where his ideological thinking was at this time. This perhaps helps to explain the slant of much of his later pronouncements, as well as the change in attitude on the part of many Caribbean leaders. For example, Jamaica's prime minister channeled Ramphal's ideas in an address to the RNM negotiating team prior to an FTAA meeting:
While [we are] willing to accommodate the views and position of others, we must avoid being victims of dogma and of ideological concepts which bear no relevance to our economies. [28]
The Jamaican PM is here deliberately ambivalent, despite much surer declarations in support of the FTAA prior to and subsequently after Ramphal's expressions.
When the FTAA negotiations began, reality appears to have set in, not only among the negotiators, but also among some Caribbean private sector groups, particularly in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. They began to sense that the future under a FTAA would endanger their own long term viability. Yet, in the first half of 1999, FTAA appears to take a back seat in the regional discourse as the US signals a shift in its own regional trade agenda from a multilateral emphasis to a bilateral emphasis. There was also a Caribbean perception (probably correct) that with 2000 being an election year, there would be even less attention given to such matters on the part of the US. The regional negotiating machinery thus pays little attention to FTAA, and is instead focused on ACP and Lomé negotiations, as well as on the WTO.
It was perhaps the ongoing challenge to Caribbean preferences and exports that prompted Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur, who had previously been more optimistic on free trade, to become more skeptical:
[There is] no discernible evidence that the policy mix associated with the Washington Consensus has been successful or recommends itself as the policy menu to embrace for a new century. It is now commonplace to observe that those aspects of the international economic environment which bear most directly on the functioning of the Caribbean economy have changed in ways which do not appear to be to our advantage. The region therefore finds itself on the threshold of a new century relatively unprepared for the new dispensation and caught up in a desperate rear guard action to either secure the status quo, or to arrange new transition mechanisms to reposition itself in the evolving new order.
[…] The geopolitics of globalization, on balance, predispose the Caribbean towards economic marginalisation.[29]
Arthur pursued this line of thinking into mid-2000:
[T]he monolithic levelling social and cultural impulses of globalisation are a threat which can diminish the Caribbean and take it backward. [30]
Arthur's sentiments are echoed by (or perhaps they originated from) the RNM's chief negotiator, for whom the view is that without "serious account of the issue of smaller economies… [we] seriously question the rationality of our participation in the hemispheric free trade arrangements that at best pay only lip service to the special needs of smaller economies," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Trade and Foreign Ministers, 26 October 1999.) In the discussions preceding the Toronto meetings, the idea was raised that the Caribbean states might even withdraw from the FTAA process.
Despite the rise in such sentiments, there remained an ostensible commitment to the process. Witness a speech given by Sir Alister McIntyre, then the RNM's chief technical adviser. He rhetorically asked the question which, given the discourse at that time, late 1999, had become obvious:
Should we not stay out of these arrangements and do our own thing quietly on the side? Some people argue that we are not ready for them; we are presently too uncompetitive, too small, too lacking in the human and financial resources to negotiate this multiplicity of agreements and to implement them. As I have said on other occasions, opting out is not an option. […] The road ahead is very rough and whether one reaches the final destination is problematic, but we have no choice.[31] (Emphasis mine.)
The "battle of Seattle"-the collapse of the November 1999 WTO ministerial meetings due to overwhelming public protests-however, inspired Ramphal that there had been a "change in the global sentiment regarding the unchecked pursuit of globalization," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARIFORUM Heads of Government, 6 November 1999.) With specific regard to the FTAA, the Caribbean was not the only region to begin questioning its worth.
In 2000, Ramphal continued in his communications to regional leaders to espouse the view that "the world is coming around to recognizing that the global system being spawned has major deficiencies and down sides [sic]," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 13 October 2000.)
Another development in the thinking on the FTAA arises in 2000, which is the suggestion that "greater regional gains might arise from a bi-lateral with the US & Canada than with the entire FTAA," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 13 October 2000.) Indeed, by 2004, the entire FTAA process was regarded as something of a sham because other regional groupings, such as the Andean Group, in the FTAA process, as well as individual countries, such as Chile and Brazil, had done exactly that, while CARICOM had not. At the same time, a Reuters/Zogby poll in early 2000 found that Latin American opinion leaders were not convinced that the FTAA was "the best way forward." [32]
Nevertheless, other public leaders still issued messages regarding the FTAA (and trade liberalization in general) that connoted hopefulness. Anthony Hylton, in late 2000, continued to endorse the FTAA as having developmental potential, claiming that "Jamaica and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) stood to reap vast benefits from a larger market," and that "CARICOM's scope for expansion under the FTAA was huge."[33] In mid-2001, he stated that, "there were also significant opportunities [in the FTAA] which could help fuel economic growth." [34]
In the main though, the discourse had shifted further from the initial enthusiasm to the later reluctance by 2001. Barbados PM Arthur, who in 1997 had called for the FTAA to allow those who were ready to get it started as soon as possible, had quite a different view four years later. When the U.S. proposed that the timetable for the FTAA be moved from 2005 to 2003, Arthur protested that "the Caribbean`s interests [would] be seriously undermined." [35]
The objectives envisaged by us in Miami [were to create] a more prosperous future for all our countries. [However] a Free Trade Area of the Americas which does not provide collective responses will never command the support of the people of our countries in whose name we profess to make this Agreement. Caribbean countries are disturbed that the FTAA negotiations are proceeding without that determination that they must contribute in the end to make the world economy, and especially the economy of our Hemisphere, more civilized. (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 11 April 2001.)
Perhaps not coincidentally, Caribbean private sector leaders did express such concerns. In April 2001, the director of the Jamaica Exporters Association "felt that Jamaica was not ready for free trade," and the president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce said that it was necessary to continue FTAA talks but feared that they (the private sector) might be left behind.[36] The president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association questioned the awareness of local producers of the challenges and the opportunities of the FTAA.[37] At around the same time a former Dominica Trade Minister, "warned the Caribbean against rushing to sign up to the FTAA." [38]
But despite what would appear to be hesitation on the part of the private sector, and clearly from Ramphal, Jamaica's prime minister just a few months later "reaffirmed Jamaica's commitment to hemispheric economic integration and pledged that every effort would be made to take advantage of opportunities for increased trade and development within the on-going Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations."
Our government views the FTAA as a fundamental tool that will allow the small developing states of the Caribbean to increase their participation in the global economy, attain new levels of competitiveness, while also continuing the needed process of economic liberalisation, privatisation and restructuring, so critical to this process.[39]
Regardless, Ramphal persisted that "the nature of the encounter [with the FTAA] is
not clear." [40]
Barbados PM Owen Arthur, in a keynote address, "The Promise and the Peril: A Caribbean Perspective on the FTAA," in December 2001, described the FTAA as "raising intriguing possibilities and perils for Caribbean society." Yet in this address, Arthur seemed to return to his early enthusiasm:
For all its inherent contradictions, conceptual difficulties and imponderables, the creation of a FTAA still offer[ed] the promise of the single richest regional trade and economic prospect open to man. […] Entry into the FTAA can only help the Caribbean in moving from backward, protected economies to integration into a dynamic and complex global marketplace. [41]
Arthur did discuss the challenges of small size, and of unfair trading practices on the part of the larger countries that would be members of the FTAA, namely the U.S. But the overall sense given by Arthur in this speech was not only of the region having "no choice but to come to grips with the irreversible, fundamental trends at the heart of the global economy," but that there were positives to be gained.
Arthur's moving back and forth in his position on the FTAA is puzzling, and the public record does not allow for serious evaluation of why he does not maintain a consistent line, as, say, Bernal and Hylton did.
2002-on: No clear position on the FTAA
What is clear as the year 2002 comes around, is that there is no one position on the FTAA on the part of Caribbean leaders. In 2002 the Caribbean region, as the rest of the world, became concerned with the perceived dichotomy between the US's espousing of removal of trade barriers and domestic production subsidies, at the same time as the US government maintained fiscal support for its own domestic producers and manufacturers. The public statements on the FTAA thenceforth are more varied with regard to whether the FTAA is a "good" or a "bad" thing. The lack of consistency in the discourse makes one question the extent to which there was a clear understanding of the issues at stake. For example, Jamaica's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade declared to a gathering of the Small Businesses Association of Jamaica, that "there were opportunities to be had within the FTAA." According to the news report, "He was then asked where the openings were, what niches were available to be exploited and some of the strategies that could be used to tap the markets; and that stumped him for a moment." [42]
Another example is a statement by the president of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC), the region's main private-sector grouping. He said that "the Caribbean was being 'dragged' into the process of globalisation 'largely without input from the business sector'. He claimed there was no 'strategic plan… there is a vacuum… we need to make a conscious decision to get involved, because the tide is going very fast.'" [43]
The Caribbean Policy Development Centre, a non-governmental organization, appeared to speak for Caribbean civil society when it called for "fundamental changes" to be made in the FTAA agreement on behalf of smaller economies as those "territories could find themselves locked into situations which could have a devastating impact on [their] economic future." [44]
In the Bahamas, the prevailing government attitude towards the FTAA in 2002 was that their "participation in the FTAA is by no means a certainty."[45] Yet Belize's prime minister Said Musa in February 2002 was "convinced that the small size of his country [would] not prevent it from effectively playing a central role in the latest attempt at economic integration in the Americas."[46] And Trinidad's Trade and Industry Minister stated:
A properly designed FTAA has the ability to reverse the negative aspects of our legacy and alleviate the disillusionment of those in the Americas who experience poverty.
We have [now] the opportunity to show resolve. We can be an example to the world. It is up to us to champion the values of openness, free trade, open societies, successful democracies, individual opportunity, and security. We must create an Americas of creative thinkers, innovators and entrepreneurs - one where all citizens will be given an equal opportunity for personal growth and where every nation can grow and prosper.
The successful negotiation of the FTAA is important for Trinidad and Tobago. We seek broad and full access to the markets of the more developed countries of the Hemisphere for our products and services. [47]
One might argue that there was a tone of rebuke to those who did not share such sanguine views. There is of course, the view that Trinidad is in a much more advantageous position vis-à-vis the FTAA because of its own protectionist history that allowed its manufacturing sector to flourish. Also, as Trinidad was seeking to be the home of the Secretariat, they would have had a vested interest in the trade agreement becoming reality.
Bernal continued to be optimistic also, advocating that Caribbean countries "move to capitalise on opportunities being afforded by emerging trading bloc initiatives such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) [… which] had various implications, [but they] also provide the region with tremendous opportunities." Bernal again iterated the idea that "We have no alternative but to be engaged in trying to shape" the rules of integrated trade agreements. [48] In a later address, Bernal "warned the region against side lining the FTAA, saying it was inevitable the Caribbean will have to participate in the global economy." [49]
But in 2003, St. Lucian Prime Minister Kenny Anthony questioned outright the value of the FTAA: "We are yet to have evidence that it is of any benefit to us." [50] This is a virtual word-for-word repetition of a statement made by Ramphal in 1998. Jamaica's Prime Minister, in October 2003, did not "necessarily see as a bad thing" that FTAA talks might not be wrapped up by January 2005.[51] Again Patterson was ambivalent, and even more so considering the public statement issued just months before (February 2003) that the Jamaican government was "continuing its quest to ensure the country's readiness for membership in the FTAA." [52]
Ramphal, who was no longer affiliated with the RNM, was vehement against the FTAA by 2003. He declared in June 2003, "that a fundamentalist US-led trade agenda was endangering the future of the Caribbean by leading it precipitously into a decision on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)." He also "argued that the Caribbean should call 'time out' from the forward rush to incorporate the Caribbean into the FTAA."[53] In September 2003 he celebrated the "success" of developing countries' refusal to accede to U.S. and Western European demands at the WTO meeting in Cancun, and spoke of the need to ensure that "the Western 'spin' does not weave a web of mythology around the WTO ministerial." And he urged Caribbean and developing states "not to allow the developed countries to halt their efforts in confronting what he described as the 'steady and uncaring grind of globalization'."[54]
Analysis
I have traced the shift in the rhetoric/discourse on the FTAA in the Caribbean, particularly among Caribbean leaders. The main characteristic of the shift is that, in the beginning, the FTAA was a process into which Caribbean countries had entered with the best intentions of realizing increases in trade, and hence economic development. Now the FTAA process is portrayed as something into which we are "precipitously" being led. There has been a shift, yes, but the question remains as to: why?
A common metaphor for the Caribbean decision to join the FTAA is that in 1994 (at the Summit of the Americas, to be precise), the train was pulling out of the station, and Caribbean countries jumped on the train, not knowing where it was going, but feeling that if they didn't (jump on the train), they would forever be left behind. Some who use this analogy add that when they jumped on the train, they figured they could always jump off.
Ramphal himself explained it thus:
[W]hen Caribbean leaders signed up to the FTAA in Miami in 1994 there were few factors on which to found a strategy-beyond the intuition that if there was going to be an FTAA the Caribbean had better be positioned to participate in it. (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARIFORUM Heads of Government, 1 April 1998.)
Another explanation often given for the shift is that the concerns of small economies were not perceived to have been adequately addressed in the negotiations:
The failure to include the issues of concern to smaller economies in the early phases of the negotiating process is indicative not only of a lack of commitment at present, but does not augur well for the inclusion of interests of these economies in the final outcome in 2005. (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 20 October 1999.)
I am not completely convinced by these interpretations, however. First of all, many of the concerns that were expressed in the initial declaration at the Miami Summit, and in pre-1998 utterances, are the same as those post-1998. The concern of "special provisions for smaller economies" was put on the table from 1994. After negotiations began in 1998, those "special provisions" appear not to have met Caribbean expectations, and thenceforth became a sticking point and indeed a rallying point in virtually all further discourse.
There is also the assertion that Caribbean leaders did not know what they were "getting themselves into." As Sir Shridath put it: "We [did not do] the technical and professional analysis on which the necessary political judgments can be made," (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARIFORUM Heads of Government, 1 April 1998.) This would amount to our political leaders and policy makers finding themselves, over nearly a decade, signing agreement after agreement to liberalize their economies, when they had little empirical understanding of the likely effects of those agreements. But I am reluctant to accept that our leaders and politicians could be so shortsighted.
Instead, I argue as a preliminary attempt at an explanation, that once negotiations began, our leaders and negotiators realized that, "the region possesses a very limited export basket of goods that could benefit from enhanced market access in the FTAA." There was a further recognition that, despite what might have been a general notion that our markets were already dominated by US imports, "the prospects for local manufacturers and agriculture were dim should those sectors be truly liberalized" (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARIFORUM Heads of Government, 1 April 1998.) But this then raises the question: were our leaders hitherto December 1994 unaware of our production levels, our competitiveness and our export capabilities?
Certainly, a statement in 2001 by Barbados PM Owen Arthur would suggest this:
Small countries such as those in the Caribbean in 1994 set out prepared to face the potential perils of trade liberalization fortified that these perils would be more than offset by the compensatory benefits to be realized from robust capital flows, technology transfer and the other non-trade aspects of economic cooperation.
What this suggests is that in 1994, there was an idea that the Caribbean stood more to gain from the agreement than what materialized. But what would have led our leaders to assume such largesse was forthcoming?
Along these lines is the possible reason that the FTAA was seen as an extension of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). Caribbean leaders, according to this hypothesis, signed on to the FTAA with the idea that this would be the next best thing to the CBI. Dominica's prime minister stated this outright in 1994:
Dame Eugenia Charles is convinced that FTAA represents an attempt by the United States to answer the region's fear that benefits secured under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) could be wiped out by NAFTA. "I think that is what it is, call it any name you want," she said. [55]
When the CBI Enhancement programme was passed in the US House of Representatives in 2000, member countries could only benefit from it by being willing to join the FTAA at the earliest possible date. Thus this notion that CBI benefits could only continue to be gotten via the FTAA was not merely a perception on the part of the Caribbean, but it would appear was also a "carrot" (enticement) on the part of the U.S.
It would appear that the "tipping point", or the "critical juncture"-the point at which there was a shift in opinion of the FTAA from positive to negative-occurred in 1998. Whether there was one event or a specific moment at which this took place I have not yet been able to figure out. What I have realized from the analysis of the discourse, is that it was in 1998 that, according to our leaders, and particularly Ramphal, the FTAA went from being a beacon of light to a tunnel of doom. Further research, and perhaps interviews with some of the protagonists will likely illuminate better when and/or what exactly that critical juncture was, if there was one at all.
Another likely answer to why the shift occurred lies in understanding Caribbean reactions to what was perceived as the US's hypocrisy in its positions on trade. Particularly when the US raised the tariffs on steel imports, countries all over the world felt that the US, as the biggest economy in the world, was not practicing what it preached to developing countries vis-à-vis the lowering of trade and tariff barriers. In Jamaica, attitudes towards the FTAA in general and US trade policy in particular were negatively affected when they US maintained barriers to chicken broiler meat.
Finally, I would also like to suggest that the role of ideology must be considered in attempting to understand the shift in the discourse. In the early 1990s, when there was a virtual absence of ideological debate in mainstream economic and policy arenas, and where the Washington Consensus was practically unquestioned, the idea of the FTAA was entirely appropriate and acceptable. The world came out of the Cold War and the mantra was "free trade". For the Caribbean, the FTAA would have represented the first material manifestation of what, up until then seemed like a good-as well as the only-idea for economic growth and development. However, as the Washington Consensus and its accompanying ideas and policy prescriptions began to be questioned, differing ideological perspectives began to enter, or rather, re-enter the policy debate.
Here I am referring particularly to the ideology of Sir Shridath Ramphal. While I do not intend for this paper to be an examination of Ramphal's personal ideology, nor that ideology's influence on his policy positions and recommendations, Ramphal was one of the most influential people in shaping the attitudes towards and discourse on the FTAA in his role as lead negotiator, and also considering his historical role as arbiter and convener of Caribbean regionalism. It therefore behoves us to undertake at least some examination of his thinking on the issues of trade liberalization and globalization.
Aside from his statements and communications, the content of the newspaper clippings that Ramphal sent to the CARICOM Heads of Government while he was RNM Chief Negotiator, connote a distinct skepticism with regard to the "promises" of globalization. They were, without exception, about the disadvantaged position of third world countries, and many of them foresaw an end to capitalism.[56] It would appear that Ramphal subscribed more to the notion that the ideas of trade and capital market liberalization that had dominated economic and development policy since the end of the Cold War needed to be challenged, rather than adopted. This line of thought ascribes developing country success to a strong state and protected markets, and attributes economic stagnation and rising inequality to liberalized markets. Ramphal himself stated in 2001:
All is not well in our globalized world. The marginalization in many countries in the global economy […] is a reality of the global economic environment. [L]iberalisation and globalization are fast becoming at the level of our people symbols for many of the deficiencies in their daily lives, and the injustices which they feel. We must respond to these outcries and not shelter behind dogmatic creeds. (Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 11 April 2001.)
Later in the year, Ramphal repeated his own axiom that, "while it is fashionable to say that the world changed on 11 Sept, it may be more true to say that it just got worse. The global status quo has always had a major downside for small developing countries like those of the Caribbean." Thus Ramphal's own position is basically clear.
While I did not set out to interrogate or evaluate the ideology or ideologies of those who are making policy decisions on behalf of Caribbean countries. However, considering the nature of the task-negotiations for accession to a free trade agreement-it is fair to question the compatibility of one's views with one's role. In fact, according to my analysis, one could argue that Caribbean leaders' own positions began to change when Ramphal came on board the RNM. It is also questionable in the light of what would appear to be opposing views within the members of the negotiating team. For example, Anthony Hylton was quoted as having said "It has been a fact that barriers to trade create non-competitiveness and uneconomical fiefdoms. This was the situation in the 70s".[57] This would appear to belie Ramphal's thinking on these issues. Where does that then put the Caribbean position?
By way of a conclusion
Thus I end with more questions than answers. What this exercise has done is not, as intended, answered the questions as to why the discourse about the FTAA shifted from 1994 to 2004, but has clarified what questions need now to be asked in order to better understand the shift.
Barbados PM Owen Arthur stated in 2003 that, "the only rationale that presently exists for participating in the FTAA is that the cost for opting out would be too great to face."[58] What would be the political and economic consequences of NOT joining the FTAA? What is the ideological underpinning to the positions taken by Caribbean leaders and negotiators? When, in 1994, a call was made for "special" treatment for small economies was made, did those who made that call know what they meant? And if they didn't how could they expect provision/exception to be made for small economies, and on what basis? What, if any, effect did the private sector and civil society have on the change in public leaders' attitude towards the FTAA?
These questions may prove to be academic, and the more practical questions-if the FTAA does materialize in 2005-may be very different once the integration process truly begins. But these questions are not just about the FTAA, and thus their answers are not only relevant to the FTAA and the surrounding discussion and debate. These are questions about how we-Caribbean people with our leaders and negotiators-make policy decisions that can have sea change effects at macro and micro levels. And thus they are not limited to the specifics of the FTAA, but to the broader and deeper issues of the basis on which we choose our future.
NOTES
[1] Address to the Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference, Belize City, Belize, June 2003.
[2] Address to the Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference, Belize City, Belize, June 2003.
[3]"CARICOM needs to get its house in order," The Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1994.
[4]"Cheddi Jagan's Vision for Caribbean and Hemispheric Integration." Speech by Ambassador Odeen Ishmael at the Cheddi Jagan Research Institute, 22 March 2004.
[5] Richard Bernal, "Free trade for the Americas," The Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1995. Originally published in the Miami Herald.
[6] "Help needed to build free trade area," The Daily Gleaner, 24 May 1995.
[7] Camille Drake, "Jamaica taking leading role in American free trade area," The Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1995.
[8] "JA in support of the establishment of FTAA," The Daily Gleaner, 14 July 1995.
[9] Camille Drake, "Jamaica taking leading role in American free trade area," The Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1995.
[10] Richard Bernal, "Free trade for the Americas," The Daily Gleaner, 23 May 1995. Originally published in the Miami Herald.
[11] "Robertson calls for hemispheric free trade," The Daily Gleaner 8 December 1995.
[12] "Caribbean leaders cite need for co-operation with US," The Daily Gleaner 18 December 1996.
[13] Quoted by Rickey Singh, "CARICOM is poorer after Manley and Jagan," The Daily Gleaner, 9 March 1997.
[14] "Carrington sets guidelines on external negotiations," The Daily Gleaner 1 April 1997.
[15] Ramphal, Shridath. "The West Indies in the wider world: Compulsions of regional engagement." Address in the Distinguished Lecturer Series of the University of the West Indies. In No Island is an Island: Selected Speeches of Sir Shridath Ramphal, edited by David Dabydeen and John Gilmore. London: Macmillan, 2000.
[16] Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARIFORUM Heads of Government, 26 March 1997.
[17] CARICOM dragging its feet on Single Market The Daily Gleaner 4 September 1997.
[18] Ramphal, Shridath. "Globalization: myth, reality and challenge." Speech at a symposium on globalization organized by the Guyana Manufacturers' Association Limited. In No Island is an Island: Selected Speeches of Sir Shridath Ramphal, edited by David Dabydeen and John Gilmore. London: Macmillan, 2000.
[19] Communication from Sir Shridath Ramphal to CARICOM Heads of Government, 13 October 2000.
[20] "CARICOM strategy meeting opens," The Daily Gleaner 22 July 1997.
[21] Ram Ramesh, "Arthur calls for US banana rethink" The Financial Gleaner 24 October 1997.
[22] The Daily Gleaner30 January 1998.
[23] "CAIC official urges region to unite fast," The Financial Gleaner 31 October 1997.
[24] "CARICOM private sector must be part of trade talks- Carrington," The Daily Gleaner 14 April 1998.
[25] Carl Wint, "Need to know crucial - Seaga," The Financial Gleaner 24 April 1998.
[26] Statement by the St. Kitts & Nevis. Fourteenth Meeting of the CGCED. OECS Country Session. World Bank Headquarters, Washington, D.C. June 10, 1998.
[27] Richard L. Bernal, "FTAA: Stop, go or wait?" The Sunday Gleaner 3 May 1998. (First published in the Washington Times.)
[28] "Negotiators prepare for Miami talks," The Daily Gleaner 29 August 1998.
[29] "Arthur sees economic challenges ahead," The Financial Gleaner 10 September 1999. (Extracts from a speech by Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur on "Economic Policy options in the 21st Century.")
[30] "Public Affairs: The future of the Caribbean Community," The Sunday Gleaner 14 May 2000. (Extracts from an address by Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados at the third Caribbean Media Conference, Georgetown, Guyana on May 5.)
[31] "At the Podium: Jamaica and the new world order," The Daily Gleaner 26 November 1999. (Excerpts of a paper by Sir Alister McIntyre.)
[32] "Latin American enthusiasm for FTAA cools," The Daily Gleaner 28 January 2000.
[33] "Jamaicans urged to exploit Free Trade Area," The Daily Gleaner 24 October 2000.
[34] Donna Ortega, "Globalisation challenges face Jamaica - Hylton," The Daily Gleaner 6 May 2001.
[35] "Early FTAA timetable will hurt Caribbean - Owen Arthur," The Daily Gleaner 13 March 2001.
[36] Donna Ortega, "Small economies remain guarded on FTAA's impact," The Daily Gleaner 18 April 2001.
[37] "The borderless marketplace - Is Jamaica really ready?" The Sunday Gleaner 3 June 2001. (From an address by Mr. Clarence Clarke, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association at the Board of Director's meeting in Kingston, Jamaica on May 16, 2001.)
[38] "Former minister cautions region on FTAA," The Daily Gleaner 25 April 2001.
[39] "PM reaffirms Jamaica's commitment to FTAA," The Daily Gleaner 31 August 2001.
[40] "Sir Shridath's advice and farewell as head of RNM," The Daily Gleaner 29 November 2001.
[41] Delivered at the 2001 CLAA Miami Conference on Free Trade and Integration - Implications for the Caribbean Basin," Miami, Florida, 6 December 2001.
[42] Lavern Clarke, "Free trade opens but Jamaica cannot exploit it," The Sunday Gleaner 17 March 2002.
[43] "Ramphal proposes priority for EU deal; He says this would help in negotiating the FTAA," Latin America Regional Reports: Caribbean & Central America, 30 April 2002, p.2.
[44] "FTAA re-visited, from a Caribbean perspective," Antigua Sun, 16 January 2003.
[45] Tamara McKenzie "Govt will not 'blindly' join FTAA, WTO - Miller," Nassau Guardian, 29 October 2002; Alice Bain, "FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) and the Bahamas,"
The Abaconian 15 August 2002. http://www.go-abacos.com/news/conian/8-15-2/ftaa-free-trade-area.html
[46] Canute James, "Caribbean and Central America Press for Co-operation," Financial Times 12 February 2002.
[47] Kenneth Valley, Minister of Trade and Industry and Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Trinidad. Address given at the opening of the 15th Meeting of the FTAA Trade Negotiations Committee, 30 September 2002, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
[48] "Carib should not fear globalisation, says Bernal," The Daily Gleaner 18 July 2002.
[49] "'Caribbean cannot ignore the FTAA', says Dr. Bernal," The Daily Gleaner 23 January 2003.
[50] "Anthony drums up support for Caribbean unity," The Daily Gleaner 30 January 2003.
[51] "FTAA: US-Brazil standoff dims prospects for Miami Ministerial." International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest 7 (33), October 2003. http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/03-10-08/story4.htm
[52] "Jamaica working towards FTAA membership," Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade (Jamaica) News Release, 17 February 2003.
[53] David Jessop, "Sir Shridath's call for 'time out' from the forward rush to incorporate the Caribbean into the FTAA is timely," Jamaica Observer, 22 June 2003.
[54] "Sir Shridath Ramphal urges Caribbean to maintain momentum of Cancun," Caribbean Net News 28 September 2003. http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2003/09/28/ramphal.htm
[55] "CARICOM needs to get its house in order," The Daily Gleaner, 12 December 1994.
[56] Titles of the articles included: "Capitalism falling apart, says Soros", Guardian16 September 1998. "From market madness to recession: A dangerous new manifesto for capitalism", Le Monde Diplomatique October 1998. "The end of another fantasy: Global corporations no longer rule the world and the US is on the retreat from its free trade schemes," Guardian 22 December 1999. "They don't owe us, we owe them", The Guardian, 20 July 2000, "World leaders will today promise to help the poor. Empty words again?" The Guardian, 21 July 2000. "West's fine words leave debts piled high", The Guardian, 21 July 2000. "Taste of failure with the lobster and caviar" (on the "demarche on the G8 on Third World debt" [Ramphal's description]), The Times of London, 26 July 2000. "In Prague, Capitalism with a human face: World financial leaders heed warnings", International Herald Tribune, 2 October 2000. (Ramphal's comment on the article: "I remain skeptical about long term redemption.")
[57] Camille Drake, "Jamaica taking leading role in American free trade area," The Daily Gleaner, 7 July 1995.
[58] "Barbados's premier concerned about lack of discussion in Caribbean about FTAA," Caribbean Media Corporation news agency, 3 April 2003.
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