An Evolving Relationship Between President Obama and Caribbean Leaders

Last month, as Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne welcomed his fellow Caribbean leaders to a two-day summit, he looked out into the audience and thanked Venezuela, China and Taiwan for their support.

“The governments extended a hand,” the outgoing chairman of the 15-member Caribbean Community regional grouping known as Caricom said to a backdrop of thunderous applause. “We will not forget.”

Browne’s admission was as much an acknowledgment of the three nations’ new role in a region once dominated by the United States, as much as it was a statement about Caribbean leaders’ feelings about being neglected by their most important security and trading partner...

But with world oil prices plummeting, countries are losing the advantages. And despite Venezuela’s insistence that Petrocaribe isn’t going away, analysts are questioning how long it can last.

“I don’t think this is going to be a meeting about Venezuela, but Venezuela will be a subtext,” said Council of the Americas Vice President Eric Farnsworth . “There is an obvious change going on in Venezuela that is going to impact the Caribbean one way or another.”

Another country that is likely to come up is Cuba, Farnsworth said. While publicly Caribbean leaders have warmly received the U.S and Cuba’s thawing relationship, from an economic standing point their lives just got more complicated.

“If I were a Caribbean leader, I would be very interested to know what the U.S. president’s plans are in reference to Cuba because of my economic well-being,” Farnsworth said. “Once Cuba does open up, the potential for U.S. investors to go to Cuba and overlook other parts of the Caribbean is significant....”

Farnsworth said while Caribbean leaders’ impression that the United States has been focused elsewhere isn’t unfounded, he would challenge the notion that the U.S. has cast the region adrift...

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