The PetroCaribe energy agreement is a model of cooperation among developing countries. So said Bruce Golding at the end of the most recent ministerial meeting of the 17 members of the pact last weekend.

Over that same weekend, CARICOM's trade ministers also ended their most recent meeting. But things were more acrimonious. Jamaica's Karl Samuda traded strong words threatening retaliation for trade and immigration discrimination. I presume that Samuda would not think CARICOM is a model of cooperation.

What is right about Petro-Caribe and what is wrong with CARICOM?

For an import and oil-dependent, heavily indebted country like Jamaica in an era of historically the highest oil prices with no immediate cheap energy alternative for its uncompetitive industries, PetroCaribe is a godsend. Jamaica pays for the oil its gets from Venezuela over 25 years at one per cent. There is no energy arrangement like it in the world.

Jamaica has initially saved hundreds of millions of United States dollars of foreign reserves, and its exchange rate and general economic state would have been in a far worse position, bad as things are now. The value of PetroCaribe to the Jamaican economy and all activities that depend on its health should be beyond dispute. It is a classical case of how our domestic and external interests are aligned.

Model of cooperation

It is good that Golding has made it clear to Venezuela that we value PetroCaribe as a model of cooperation. Hopefully, this means that his administration will more fully align Jamaica's domestic economic interests with its external interests. It still strikes me as incomprehensible that just a few years ago, in 2005, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), with Golding as its new leader, led an islandwide demonstration costing us scarce dollars when Venezuela, Jamaica and others were signing the first PetroCaribe agreement in the sensitive and global tourist city of Montego Bay.

It confounds me that the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) had argued in 2007 that Jamaica must temper its relations with Venezuela even as it admitted that foreign and domestic policies are potentially related to development. This failure to think globally is an outdated throwback to the 'we are with the west' JLP policy at independence. Now, the west, burdened with its own recession, has little to offer immediately except International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.

It also strikes me as 'ideological'' that the current administration was so critical of the previous government's support for Venezuela to have a temporary seat on the Security Council in 2006. Worse, it favoured Guatemala, a country that has been inimical to our trading interest leading the challenge to our preferential banana agreements in the World Trade Organisation. Our banana trade is now a ghost of its former self. The support of Guatemala over Venezuela is a misalignment of external and domestic interests.

What is wrong with CARICOM? Jamaica-Trinidad relations have been the most difficult in the Commonwealth Caribbean throughout the history of CARICOM, even going back to the federation. They centre on trade and the form of regional unity. More currently energy has also been an issue. As recently as May 5 this year, Golding said his government was still hopeful of an agreement with Trinidad for the latter to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG). The previous administration had started these negotiations and valued it dearly as a part of its energy policy to source natural gas for the bauxite and other industries. LNG was vital in order to expand investments in the bauxite sector and make the sector more competitive. For all these reasons Trinidad and CARICOM remain very important to Jamaica's national interest. Jamaica must therefore find a way to more fully align its national interest with CARICOM.

There are three things we must do. We must exercise our right to complain through Protocol 1X of CARICOM's dispute settlement arrangement against discrimination. Unilateral action to place countries on watch lists can bring counter action and a trade war. It can damage goodwill on other issues, such as energy. Trade disputes need not go as far as the Caribbean Court of Justice, but membership of such a court, which the JLP has fought against, would be another weapon in our armoury.

Second, our producers must be more competitive. Trinidad is competitive because it has cheap oil and gas. We don't. We must find ways. We must utilise science and technology, have realistic executive salary packages, develop our niche markets, consistent with our industrial policy, develop alternative energy, reduce interest rates and build export capacity. The trade data show, and Trinidad knows this well, that we do not export near enough to cover our imports. We don't have a trade surplus with our main trading partners in and outside of CARICOM.

'Country-first' mode

The third thing to do is signal our commitment to CARICOM and insist that other members also do so. The present administration has to work at this harder than the previous one. Jamaica and many CARICOM countries have shifted into a 'country-first' mode of thinking in pursuing stimulus packages and debt-management strategies with international financial institutions outside of CARICOM.

At the same time, Golding says that the Single Market and Economy requires certain structures of political unity, which is an idea that the JLP would not accept. Having declared this in 2008, it is not surprising that other CARICOM governments have begun to explore their options for greater political unity without Jamaica, if necessary, but within a (mini) single market and economy.

It is disingenuous for Jamaica to blame CARICOM. Professor Norman Girvan was moved to say of Golding: "Whether or not it was his intention, his statement was widely interpreted in the eastern Caribbean to mean that his government was not committed to completing the 'E' (Economy) part of the CSME. Also clear was his opposition to any reform of Community governance that involved some pooling of Jamaica's sovereignty into some form of collective sovereignty". Golding and Samuda must not send the wrong signals.

What can we do?

Jamaica can explore options of its own within the framework of CARICOM. Jamaica is ideally geographically placed to do more business with the western Caribbean. Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic have the largest markets in the Caribbean by far, over 30 million. Granted, it is a culturally differentiated area but different languages did not stop the European Union from forming its union. It is not stopping Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries) from entering common economic relations to increase their political clout.

Now that the Organisation of American State is open to Cuba, and there is a Cuba-CARICOM Commission anyway; now that the Economic Partnership Agreement treats the Dominican Republic as a part of CARICOM for all intents and purposes, and the DR has also applied for membership of CARICOM; and since Haiti is already a member of CARICOM and is being given new attention by the Obama administration, the United Nations (UN) and the new UN envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, Jamaica needs to formalise these relationships, help make the rules of fuller engagement and do business with the Western Caribbean. Jamaica still has good options.

What we need is good diplomacy.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona campus. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com.