FRED MITCHELL SPEAKS IN WASHINGTON D C

UNIVERSITY CLUB

WASHINGTON, D C 13 June 2024

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Thank you for inviting me to speak here this afternoon. I speak to you first by

bringing warmest greetings from the Prime Minister of The Bahamas Philip

Davis. Joining me this afternoon is Ambassador-at-large Gilbert Morris, the

Ambassador to Washington D C for our country Wendall Jones and

Ambassador to the Organization of American States Chet Neymour, with

Patrick Adderley our Consul General. It is an honour to be here.

Right now in Nassau, there is a massive conference with some 3200 delegates

from across the Caribbean and Africa for the annual meeting of the Afrexim

Bank and consecutively a discussion on Caribbean African trade. This is part of

the now familiar mantra of South South cooperation. The Afrexim Bank has

been engaged in the Caribbean, following up on the decision of the African

Union to declare the Diaspora, the sixth region of the African Union. The

Caribbean is one of the areas of the largest concentration of people of African

descent in the world, outside of Africa.

I start there because one of the statements I have made in our own country is

that as I traveled around The Bahamas and the Caricom region, there is nothing

that I have seen that cannot be solved by money. Our countries both in Africa

and the Caribbean have been underdeveloped by this lack of resources. The

Afrexim Bank has seen the Caribbean as an area of growth potential and is

planning to put what for us is significant investments in the region to help with

our development.

Most of our countries, with the exception of Haiti are classified as either middle

income or high income countries and because of that and the classification of

our GDP per capita, we are unable to get the concessionary financing from

traditional sources at reasonable rates.

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In The Bahamas our Prime Minister has said that 40 per cent of our national

debt is due to extreme weather and climate change, yet we have had to bear the

costs of what is now admitted to be a problem not of our own making, by going

to the international financial private capital markets in order to recover, with the

attendant expense of that capital. We struggle throughout the Caricom region to

recover after these extreme weather events.

So in our societies there is deficit in the access to capital, we are shopping

around the world for sources of capital. This has meant outreach away from

America to Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Development Bank of Latin

America.

Notwithstanding the promises that there would be change in the international

financial institutions about this, the words have not yet quite translated into

deeds.

In 2013, Joe Biden was then Vice President of the United States. He was

dispatched to have a working meeting with the Caricom heads in Port of Spain.

There are two take aways that I recall from that meeting. First, Caricom Prime

Ministers were complaining about the fact that our countries could not access

capital from the United States for development projects. His reply was that the

United States did not have any money to give and if the Chinese had it then

God bless you he said, take it. The Chinese had promised a 20 billion dollar set

aside for investments in the region.

Secondly, Caricom Prime Ministers complained that there was a raid on

Caricom talent, with the region losing nurses, doctors and other professionals.

Mr. Biden said that he would not apologise for that. He said America wanted

the best and as long as the region could produce them, the US would take them.

In 2024, I was tasked as Foreign Minister with seeking the support of the United

States for a 300 million dollars loan, for building the new hospital which we

require in Nassau. The Prime Minister’s view was that the first option was to

seek American capital. The Chinese were making a serious offer of capital to

which they have since agreed and his view was that we should seek first from

the US and only if there were default, we should look elsewhere. There was not

a solution from our traditional partners. We need the hospital and we were

obliged to accept Chinese capital to build it. We thank the Chinese for it.

We were concerned about some of the commentary in the United States that we

were the subject of Chinese economic hegemony or even political hegemony

and that this might constitute a threat to the United States. In our view

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accepting Chinese money on business and commercial terms does not constitute

any of those things but rather a fact of life: if your populations are to survive.

In a few weeks, we will welcome a new Deputy Head of Mission to the United

States Embassy in Nassau. There is a brand new 350 million dollar building in

Nassau which awaits formal commissioning as the Embassy of the United

States of America on 28 June 2024. There has not been a U S Ambassador to

occupy the old embassy or the new one since 2011. The prospect of an

ambassador seems as remote as ever.

Yet on a practical level things work fine and one supposes the status quo is

certainly sustainable, tenable even though the nuances of a political appointee’s

access would add some weight to some irritants in the relationship.

In my discussions with the new head of mission, the one irritant that I

mentioned, was that of the policy on the issue of visas. There are too many

complaints from citizens of The Bahamas whose visa requests are rejected on

what seems an arbitrary or whimsical basis. To be frank, I most recently

warned Bahamians about traveling to the United States and overstaying their

time. I have indicated that the decisions on visas is a subjective one. I have also

indicated that the Foreign Ministry of The Bahamas had no say or influence on

whether someone gets a visa or not.

Nonetheless, it is incumbent to make the point in a society as small as ours and

as close as ours that the decision making on this issue ought to be examined in

light of the complaints. To be fair, the officials have agreed to review the

complaints.

We have a preclearance facility in Nassau and we hope that we are able to

renew the one in Freeport. This allows Bahamians to enter the United States of

their police record which if clean allows them to travel to America.

The Bahamas does not qualify for the ESTA programme, nor does any Caricom

country. We have asked why, since when you examine the list, there is no

country of African ethnic majority in which the programme obtains. The answer

was that we do not fit the criteria; the programme requires we were told a

particular rejection rate for applications prior to granting the status, and our

rejection rate was too high or was at the time we last asked. We have simply let

the status quo continue.

We are now beginning discussions on global entry which I am advised is only

now available to citizens of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean.

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I have made the point to our citizens that the United States is a country to which

you can emigrate legally fairly easily. It a takes a while sometimes, but it is

doable and so we seek to persuade people not to take to rafts and rickety boats

to make their way to Florida from Haiti, Cuba through The Bahamas.

It continues however. In is in this connection, we have been preaching the

gospel of détente with Cuba as the solution to the problem of refugees who seek

to leave their homeland in Cuba and set off to America. The policy of the

United States should change toward Cuba and if it does that will alleviate the

suffering in Cuba dramatically and lessen the issue of outward irregular

migration.

Here is the list of people of Caricom descent in the United States as at 2017:

Jamaica 745k or 26 per cent of its current population

Haiti 680 k or 5 per cent of its current population

Trinidad and Tobago 235 k or 17 per cent of its current population

Barbados 65k or 23 per cent of its current population

Grenada 34k or27 per cent of its current population

Dominica 34k or 46 per cent of its current population

Bahamas 33 k or 8 per cent of its current population

St Vincent and the Grenadines 24 k or 23 per cent of its current population

West Indies 25k

Other Caribbean 76 k

These are interesting figures and I think the situation is growing more alarming

to the leaders of our countries as the raid on nurses and doctors and teachers

continues.

What strikes me, and I admit this is anecdotal, is that many of the people who

are working in the United States from our countries in the Caricom region are

the recipients or were the recipients of public education in our countries. That

public education is financed or financed by the taxpayers of our Caricom

countries, and yet the beneficiaries of the education are not our taxpayers but

the taxpayers of the United States. We have been arguing for some time that

there ought to be some form of support in exchange for the talent which is being

supplied.

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I got to know a little bit Henry Kissinger before he passed away. He was an

annual visitor to a rich enclave in The Bahamas called Lyford Cay. One night I

had the honour of sitting with Paul Volker, the former Central Banker on one

side and Dr. Kissinger on the other. That tells a story in a picture in more than

words can say. We agreed that the influence of The Bahamas might have been

outsized precisely because of that little enclave in Nassau and the personalities

that have lived there and continue to live there. The Northeastern establishment

of the United States could be found there on holiday every winter.

We agreed also that the Northeast establishment had The Bahamas as a

preferred second home destination which also helped the influence the country

might have on the policies of the United States. I do not make too much of it

but I do think certainly that given the fact that so many of our people get their

education in the United States who come from The Bahamas and across the sub

region, that has certainly caused and influenced public life in The Bahamas.

I do not think this is a bad thing . It is good thing.

The former Governor General Arthur Hanna in welcoming the South Korean

Ambassador to The Bahamas said to us that both South Korea and The

Bahamas were nestled next to giants but only as independent as the giants

allowed.

I agree there and I also say though that the connections of kith and kin between

the two societies is a benefit to both, and I think the situation obtains throughout

the Caricom region: Attorney General Eric Holder a descendant of Barbados,

Sidney Poitier from The Bahamas, Colin Powell from Jamaica are all examples.

It is in that light then, that Caricom has been engaged in a close working

relationship with the development of US policy on Haiti. I think that the

present US administration has done a good job thus far in seeking to right the

ship there and allowing Caricom to take the lead. In this connection, I thank the

President of the United States and the point spokesperson Vice President Haris

and Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols. Secondly, Caricom recently

announced its support of the proposals to settle the war in Gaza, advanced by

the President of the United States. It is our hope that the way forward on this

issue is now clear.

In sum then, I hope that I have a painted picture of a region that is joined as the

hip to the United States in trade and in economics and in shared values of

human rights, tolerance and decency, the rule of law. We hope that this

influences the policies on climate change and on immigration to the United

States, the latter of which has proven to be of value to both societies. We also

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hope that the world order post the Second World War with some tweaks

continues to be the rational basis on which American policies continue and that

domestic exigencies do not adversely affect the rationality of those policies.

We are watching with a wary eye, the November general elections in America.

We are pledged to work together on building a better world, regardless of who

wins. This is particularly the case in the policy toward climate change.

Thank you very much indeed.

End