Prime Minister Andrew Holness Wednesday said he had “productive and constructive discussions” with the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as the two countries reinforced their bond of long standing friendship.
Holness said that the discussions focused on strengthening the partnership and expanding opportunities for collaboration.
“During our meeting we addressed several critical areas of cooperation, security…and we re-affirmed our commitment to enhancing cooperation in combating transnational crime, ensuring the collective safety of our citizens an mutually secured borders
“We discussed a global war on gangs and there is already significant policy alignment with both countries in this regard,” Holness told reporters, adding that the United States has been instrumental in supporting Jamaica’s efforts to bolster its marine awareness and intelligence surveillance capabilities, crucial in the fight against organised crime.
Holness said that discussions had also been held on “expanded and repurposing development assistance towards shared goals including security ,” adding this will significantly expand the cooperation between the two countries in fighting lottery scams, trans-national organised crimes, trafficking in guns and building safer communities.
“We are committed in ensuring that our partnership delivers results in driving down criminality and trafficking in this hemisphere,” Holness said.
Rubio said that while Washington may use another phrase other than “global war on crime, nonetheless “we are talking about the same problem.
“It is amazing if you look across the region and many parts of the world how many of the threats we face in the world now once came from an ideological terrorist organisation or from a nation state and are now coming from non governmental organisations who in some cases are more powerful than governments in some of theses countries.”
He said that it is a significant challenge, including in Haiti and “it is a multifaceted challenge.
“How many of the guns and weapons being used by gangs to commit acts of violence here in Jamaica are purchased in the United States and we want to commit to doing more to stopping the flow at the same time we want to do more to increasing your capacity…in helping Jamaica build its own capacity , its own ability to confront these challenges”.
He said that Washington is reactivating the center that will deals with lottery scamming, providing synthetic detection equipment for Jamaica forensic labs, another counter gang recruitment programme and providing intelligence software to combat gangs as well as night vision googles and technology.
The meeting also discussed the ongoing situation in Haiti where criminal gangs have been seeking to overthrow the government ever since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
“We look forward to continued partnership with the United States as we seek to work with the Haitian leadership and stakeholders to address the ongoing crises in Haiti,” Holness said, acknowledging that the situation in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country posses “ a huge threat to Haitians, regional stability and indeed to its close neighbours, including Jamaica.
“We agreed we must do everything we can to stablise the situation in Haiti so that they are better able to build capacity and address their political and humanitarian challenges”.
Holness said that on the issue of trade, with bilateral trade surpassing three billion dollars in 2023, “we explored avenues to further expand trade relations between our two countries, the renewal of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act…as a matter of critical importance for trade for ourselves and for all member CARICOM states.
Holness said the discussions also explored means to attract increased US investment into Jamaica’s emerging sectors, adding that “Jamaica is open for enhanced US investment across multiple sectors including energy and near shoring.
“I am confident that today will lead to tangible outcomes benefitting both our peoples and contributing to mutual stability and prosperity,” Holness said.
Rubio said that Washington is in the midst of realigning its trade policy “primarily to reset global trade in a way that is fair to the US after 20 or 30 years of what we believe is unfairness, not when it come sot Jamaica…
“From that will come new opportunities to create new alignments and new trade opportunities and I believe Jamaica is one of those places that together we both can benefit.”
Rubio said that he also believes there are opportunities for investment, particularly in energy.
He said the United States would be producing a lot of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) “which we have in abundance and we will seek to export.
“You cannot have manufacturing without reliable and affordable energy and it is one of those things I think we could continue, along with other things…to utilise the resource of the country ina responsible way.”
He said discussions were also on the tourism sector, promising to go back and re-look the travel advisories on Jamaica “to ensure that they do reflect the reality of the new numbers…when it comes to the murder rates and so forth.”
Rubio said one of the reasons he wanted to visit Jamaica today was to deal with the issue of aid.
“The United States is not getting out of the aid business. We are going to be providing foreign aid. The difference is w e want to provide foreign aid in a way that is strategically aligned with our foreign policy priorities and the priorities of our host countries…that we are partners with.
“How it has worked in the past is that USAID or some other entity would come into a country and say this is what we think you need and they go and hire an NGO and they are the ones that convince them that’s what you need and give them a bunch of money and they come into the country and they do things.
“Some of these programmes are fine, they are nice things, other times no so much,” he said, adding “how we want it to be in the future is out embassies are involved with our host governments…and we ask them what are your needs and we provide assistance geared towards the needs of the nation state that is hosting us,” Rubio added.
Source-CMC
