Editorial | Vale Royal and red lines

The public controversy over Jamaica's decision to accept third country nationals being thrown out of the United States will soon dissipate. Which is what the government expects and is banking on.

But the further erosion of public trust that the issue, which the administration's handling of it has caused, will continue to linger. For, despite Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness’ view that the public's and the political opposition's response to the matter "borders on the ridiculous", few Jamaicans accept that the administration acted entirely on its own volition in a supposed act of pragmatic foreign policy.

The greater likelihood is that, like other developing countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere, Jamaica was leaned on by the Trump administration to help in its outsourcing of the management of illegal immigration and asylum/refugee issues.

As The Gleaner's Editorial Board previously observed with respect to this and other matters, as a small country in proximity to a powerful neighbour that is willing to exercise its muscles, Jamaica has to be circumspect in how it manoeuvres. It is sensible in these circumstances that governments, insofar as possible, seek to develop political consensus on what ought to be national red lines when responding to pressures from powerful nations.

This is part of the context in which the Editorial Board laments the long abeyance of the Vale Royal process and recommends the urgent resurrection of the talks between the Government and the political Opposition on critical national issues, including the agreement on third country nationals (TCN).

Such discussions don't guarantee consensus or agreements. But frank dialogue, without the performative impulse of public cross-talk, is more likely to bring clarity to issues and, therefore, better understanding of positions.

Two weeks ago, the Government confirmed, as was reported by this newspaper, the existence of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the US and Jamaica that would have the Americans send to the island other countries’ nationals who the US didn’t want, or deemed ineligible to be in the US.

The text of the MOU has not been published. Its terms remain hazy, except for the Government’s assurance that none of the people to be sent to Jamaica will be criminals. It also promised that Kingston will adhere to international humanitarian law, including those covering asylum seekers and refugees.  Additionally, Jamaica has skirted around the language of US diplomatic note on the MOU, which put the number of potential TCNs who could possibly come to the island as “up to 10,000”. Instead, Prime Minister Holness has spoken of “25 per fortnight”.

Whatever may be in the fine print of the agreement, the arrangement is obviously in keep with the Trump administration’s project to limit the flow of illegal migrants and asylum seekers (especially those from developing countries) to the US by carting them off to other countries before they have an opportunity to gain a toehold in the American legal system. Indeed, nearly 30 countries, including several in the Caribbean whose citizenship by investment schemes were flagged by the US for possible sanctions, have entered TCN deals with Washington.

However, Jamaica insists that it was not pressured to sign the MOU and that it exercised complete national agency in the matter.

“Jamaica has been asked to do many things before and we have not,” Prime Minister Holness told a radio interviewer.  “We have made sure it (the MOU) complies with our laws; that it suits our political timetable; that it suits our interests; and that it is in the interest of our friends.” 

But there is a broader framework in which the MOU has to be considered: President Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine of America’s hegemony in the Western Hemisphere; his policy of eroding China’s influence in the Americas; and how Mr Trump has moved to enforce his worldview.

For instance, the president ordered the US military to blow up suspected drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea, which legal experts characterise as extrajudicial killings; he sanctioned the rendition of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, ostensibly to face drug charges in the US; and he has enforced an oil blockade on Cuba, extending America’s six-decades-old economic embargo on the communist Caribbean island.

Further, Kari Lake, Mr Trump’s nominee as ambassador in Kingston, has made clear Washington’s wish that Jamaica dial-back relations with China, the island’s only significant source, apart from multilateral lending agencies, of development capital in recent decades. Ms Lake has targeted the 49 per cent interest by a Chinese company in Jamaica’s major transshipment port.

Official policy, and the navigation of diplomacy, rests with elected governments. National interest issues, however, transcend administrations.  They intersect government and politics. 

Some matters, therefore, demand consideration, and possibly agreement, outside the hustings.

That, in part, is what the Vale Royal Talks - started in the 1990s when P.J. Patterson was prime minister and Edward Seaga was opposition leader - were designed to do.  They have been held periodically since then, but have been dormant since 2023 when the Government and the Opposition differed on constitutional reform.

After last September’s general election, Prime Minister Holness signalled that the Vale Royal summits would be reconvened in an attempt to break the logjam on the constitutional questions. That hasn’t happened.

The posture in Washington suggests that the Government and Opposition should at least be talking about agreed red lines.