Editorial | Echoes of the Monroe Doctrine

The cynically opportunistic might perceive an advantage of some kind for the Caribbean in Donald Trump’s threat that the US could take back the Panama Canal.

But Mr Trump’s remarks about the canal, as well as his reprise of his first-term ambition to take over Greenland for the United States, reinforces The Gleaner’s previous advice to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that it formulates a common and coordinated policy for engaging the US under his presidency.

For the signals from the president-elect as he prepares to resume office on January 20, appear to have more in common with 19th and 20th century concepts of diplomacy and the Monroe Doctrine than self-determination and sovereignty, or with the post-War world order and the accompanying global mechanisms for settling disputes. These systems are, or course creaky, mostly work to the benefit of the powerful and are in need of overhaul to be made more equitable. However, they are what are in place now and what small, poor countries like those in the Caribbean, even as they work towards reforms, must exploit as creatively as possible to ensure their rights, based on agreed global norms.

Critically, too, small countries have greater insulation if they band together. In that context, CARICOM, an economic and functional cooperation organisation of 15 countries, is a valuable institution.

The community’s coordination of engagement with the United States doesn’t mean adopting a hostile posture, which must be clearly articulated and made known to Washington, even before Mr Trump sits in the White House. Rather it is about identifying matters of mutual interest to both sides, establishing the Caribbean’s priorities and demarking the community’s red lines in respectful, neighbourly conversations.

INWARD LOOKING ISOLATIONISM

Against this backdrop, Mr Trump’s remarks about Greenland and the Panama Canal add important context to his ideology of “America First”, and the prevailing assumptions of it represents a totally inward-looking isolationism. For, on its face, it now appears that Mr Trump may be willing to exert more than America’s economic power in pursuing the US’s commercial interests abroad.

Greenland is a vast, sparsely-populated, autonomous, mostly ice-covered island to the east of Canada, in the north Atlantic. It is administratively part of Denmark, from which the United States, in 1917, purchased what are now called the US Virgin islands in the Caribbean.

Greenland is replete with natural resources, including, experts say, rare earth minerals that contain the metals that are increasingly in demand in high-tech industries, such as the manufacture of microchips and batteries.

Additionally, the warming of Earth’s temperature, and the melting ice sheets around Greenland, will potentially open, or make more accessible, sea routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific, further enhancing the island’s geo-strategic and economic value.

When he was previously in office Mr Trump floated the idea of buying Greenland. He was rebuffed. Last week, in announcing his proposed ambassador to Denmark, the president-elect broached the matter again with forceful language.

“...For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Mr Trump said in a social media post.

“Greenland is ours,” retorted Greenland’s premier, Múte Egede. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

The Danish government declined to comment other than reference “what was stated by the premier of Greenland about Greenland not being for sale, but open for cooperation”.

GREATER IMMEDIACY

Given Panama’s proximity to this region, Mr Trump’s remarks about the Panama Canal is, inevitably, of greater immediacy to the Caribbean. The control of other places in the neighbourhood could be deemed to be in America’s strategic or commercial/economic interest.

The 51-mile canal cuts through the Isthmus of Panama, which separates the Atlantic and Pacific, allows vessels to easily traverse between the two oceans in the Americas, cutting about 7,000 miles from the journey.

An estimated 40 per cent of the goods consumed in the US east coast passes through Panama Canal. It is also important to other countries in the Americas, including the Caribbean.

Started, but abandoned, in the 1880s by French investors, construction of the canal was resurrected in 1903 by the United States after America helped Panama win its independence from Colombia. An agreement gave the US effective sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone. But in 1997, in what Mr Trump called a “foolish” move President Jimmy Carter agreed, via treaty, to relinquish America’s hold on the canal. The arrangement came fully into force in 2000.

But Mr Trump now claims that not only were the Panamanians “ripping off” the United States with the charges for using the canal, but raised concerns of adversaries gaining sway over the canal.

“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving (the US return of the canal to Panama) are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question,” Mr Trump said.

Panama’s president José Raúl Mulino has declared Panama’s sovereignty over “every square inch of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones”. Indeed, there is no obvious legal basis for the US to take control of it. But should it come to that, American forces could easily wrest away the canal and the entire Panama, Mr Mulino’s assertion, notwithstanding.

There is no advantage in this kind of muscle-flexing for the Caribbean, often described as America’s fourth border. Rather, it emphasises the power dynamics between large, rich countries and small, poor ones – as well as the importance of CARICOM sustaining its partnership and expanding its coalitions.