We cannot trade our sovereignty for a Visa

In the brief span of two months since being sworn in as President of the USA for the second time, Donald Trump has been fulfilling his promise to “overturn the apple cart” in his quest to impose a dictatorship of the super-rich on not just his country but the rest of the world as well. He has set in motion a series of mass dismissal of public employees, the closing of many departments and institutions which performed humanitarian tasks in the

USA and worldwide, threatened military action against neighbouring territories to impose US domination, and given overwhelming support to the Zionist genocide in Gaza and Palestine.

These are by themselves enough to trigger global condemnation and reaction, but in the Caribbean, much of the reaction has revolved around Trump’s high-handed immigration policies, his insulting threats to the sovereignty of Caribbean nations saying that they must choose between the USA and China, as though we do not have the right to choose which nations we engage with, and lately using the threat to deny visa access to countries on spurious grounds. In fact, even more insultingly, that we must forgo invaluable Cuban medical cooperation if we wish to obtain visas.

Whether he realises it or not, the visa threat seems to have touched a particular “soft spot” in Caribbean society. The Caribbean and the USA share a long history of inter-connection between their respective peoples, including trade and immigration, but by no means restricted to these areas. Millions of Caribbean peoples have migrated to the USA to seek opportunities there while American companies, primarily multinationals, have raked in millions of dollars from trade and investment transactions in the Caribbean. It has been a long partnership of mutual benefit.

However so focused have we become on the benefits to be obtained from access to the USA through obtaining visas that the US visa has become blown out of all proportion. It has reached the stage that when we hear the word ‘visa’ we automatically associate it with the coveted US visa. A visa is merely a document which entitles the owner to legally travel to another country, with specific conditions. Just as we need to obtain a visa to travel to the USA and other countries, so too do citizens of other countries need visas to enter our own humble country.

However, over the years obtaining a US visa, and the equally coveted “Green card” have become almost status symbols. In the process the US visa has become like an Achilles heel to our countries. The US only has to raise the threat of visa restrictions or denials and, right across the region, we do not consider the injustice of it, we blame and are ready to turn against our own governments, to sell our birthright for the proverbial “mess of pottage”.

This is behind the US pressures, to announce different levels of visa restrictions and denials, with four Eastern Caribbean States among them. The danger is that so highly is the US visa valued, that we do not see these threats as threats to our sovereignty, but instead are willing to forgo that precious right just to obtain and keep the prized US visa.

Undoubtedly there is much value in obtaining access to the USA through the visa, but we must not glorify it to the extent that we see our precious sovereignty as somehow inferior in order to maintain this relationship. Many of our leaders in the Caribbean must be buttressed by the support of their people if they are not to succumb to the threats. We must give them our full support in resisting the pressures, and put our sovereignty and dignity first.