We accept, without reservation, Prime Minister Golding's explanation that he declined an invitation earlier in the year to visit with President Bush at the White House only because of scheduling difficulties, notwithstanding the attempt by the Americans to find a date that was mutually acceptable to both leaders.

Since the revelation of the PM's decision, discussion of the issue has centred largely on a supposed slight that the Bush administration would have felt by Mr Golding's action and the implications for United States/Jamaica relations. Frankly, we feel that these concerns, perchance they exist, are gravely overstated.

Opportunity for observation

The issue, however, provides us with an opportunity to make a couple of observations. The first and the easiest: Somebody - we suppose US Ambassador in Kingston, Brenda LaGrange Johnson - has real pull with the White House. In the first place, Mr Golding was invited to meet the President, apparently in his own right, rather than as part of a delegation of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders. And when Mr Golding could not make the date, a genuine attempt was made to accommodate his diary. Except for the fact that Mr Bush is a lame duck with a popularity rating that tanks, the real prestige of the visit would have been Mr Golding's.

But the real issue, from our standpoint, is the pragmatic, mature and nuanced foreign policy being evolved by the Golding administration after the clunky, time-warped stumbles of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) even very late into its long stint in Opposition.

Indeed, the transformation has been the revelation of the administration and Mr Golding himself, and perhaps the real success of the Government in its ninth month in office. Sometimes, there is nothing like adversity to concentrate the mind and to sharpen perspectives.

It is not insignificant that among Mr Golding's earliest foreign trips was a trip to Cuba for a summit of the beneficiaries of Venezuela's PetroCaribe energy initiative, and for bilateral talks with Raúl Castro, the new Cuban leader.

It is true that in the post-Cold War years, the JLP's posture towards Cuba has softened, yet many people sensed at Belmont Road a residual distrust for Havana. It was apparent in the tone of the JLP's response, while in Opposition, when some Jamaican patients, who had benefited from free eye surgery in Cuba, developed complications.

Moreover, the JLP never appeared comfortable with the former administration's deepening of Jamaica's long-standing relationship with Venezuela and its embrace of Hugo Chávez's offer of PetroCaribe. When Jamaica and CARICOM supported Venezuela over Honduras, for instance, Mr Golding talked darkly of mortgaging principle for oil. Karl Samuda was perhaps more strident. With oil hovering at around US$130 a barrel and Venezuela's aid support to Jamaica at over US$500 million, the administration is clear about the pragmatism of foreign policy.

Mr Golding's maturity is nowhere more apparent than at the level of Caricom, where he retreated, if not totally ditched the JLP circumspection about the community. Having understood that the benefits of integration are greater than the sum of CARICOM's individual parts, Mr Golding has displayed real leadership on this front. At the same time, he has been attempting to widen relations with the South, evidenced by his recent trip to Peru.

What Mr Golding appears to understand is that developing new, pragmatic friendships need not undermine old, trusted ones.