Impression & Impact - Global Learning Event at FIU
I attended the European Union- Caribbean Relations Revisited Conference on Tuesday, February 18, 2020. In this conference, European, Caribbean, and United States Experts sat down to discuss the relations between the EU and the Afro-Caribbean. The panel included Hon. Linda Diane Mackey, Counsel General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in Miami; Alexander Bruno, Ph.D. Student in Political Science, Patsy Lewis, Ph.D., Director for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University; Her Excellency June Soomer, Ph.D., and more. The panel explored contemporary issues in bilateral relations. This included the impact of Brexit, climate change, and post-Cotonou development partnership. Most of the conversation revolved around politics, economic, and social impact from between both regions. The Caribbean Community was also analyzed as a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. They covered past, present and future of these relations and they also highlighted the post-colonial and critical perspectives of this topic.
One pivotal discussion of the conference was when Dr. Lewis discussed the EU developing and funding the Caribbean Free Trade Association or CARIFTA, as well as CARICOM, the Caribbean Community and Common Market, in 2000 and how it was supposed to act as an important trade agreement for the economic development in the Caribbean region. She argued that CARICOM acted as a handcuff to the exploitation of resources in the Caribbean. This directly related to how My Issues in Global Literature Professor, Dr. Bentley Baker, discussed the exploitation of resources though free-trade agreements in developing countries. Dr. Lewis said, “trade is the base of economic development. We are currently stretching raw materials, mineral oil, and agriculture supply in the Caribbean countries.” This is a topic we discussed in class relating free-trade there are repercussions to these sorts of agreements which could either make or break a country or continent. Dr. Lewis also discussed Dominican Republic and Ghana’s trade with the EU calling it deceitful and using the term “market accessibility on paper.” Dr. Bentley Baker discussed how free-trade could potentially resist certain countries into mass production of items that exploit the resources of certain countries under the trade deal.
