US denies plans to “divide CARICOM”

US Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo is deny­ing any at­tempt to di­vide CARI­COM.

This, as Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness al­so ad­vised his re­gion­al col­leagues against cre­at­ing an ar­ti­fi­cial di­vide with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.

Both men spoke at a press con­fer­ence in Ja­maica this morn­ing, as part of a vis­it by the US Sec­re­tary of State to the is­land.

T&T Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley joined his Bar­ba­di­an coun­ter­part Mia Mot­t­ley in a boy­cott of the meet­ing. PM Mot­t­ley led the re­gion­al charge against the meet­ing, in which Pom­peo was ex­pect­ed to meet with some re­gion­al lead­ers and not all. She ar­gued it was a move she be­lieved was geared to­wards di­vid­ing the 15-mem­ber Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.

But at this morn­ing’s press con­fer­ence, Mr. Pom­peo said noth­ing was fur­ther from the truth.

Sec­re­tary Pom­peo as­serts that there is no in­tent from the Unit­ed States to di­vide CARI­COM, not yes­ter­day, not to­day, not to­mor­row.

Sec­re­tary Pom­peo ar­rived in Ja­maica yes­ter­day and was ex­pect­ed to meet sev­en Caribbean lead­ers to dis­cuss re­gion­al con­cerns, in­clud­ing Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal cri­sis. Some re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, have re­sist­ed calls by the Unit­ed States to sup­port Juan Guaidó as the le­git­i­mate leader of the South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness told this morn­ing’s gath­er­ing he would not en­gage in any ac­tion that would di­vide CARI­COM. And he warned his col­leagues against cre­at­ing a false sense of di­vi­sion.

PM Hol­ness said the Unit­ed States is Ja­maica’s friend, and is the coun­try’s largest trad­ing and se­cu­ri­ty part­ner.

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