Jefes de Estado del Caribe visitan a Trump para hablar sobre Venezuela

Trump recibirá en Mar-a-Lago a países del Caribe para hablar de Venezuela

El presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump, recibirá este viernes en Mar-a-Lago, su mansión en Florida, a los líderes de cinco países caribeños con los que abordará, entre otros temas, la crisis en Venezuela, informó este martes la Casa Blanca.

Trump recibirá a los líderes de Bahamas, Santa Lucía, Jamaica, Haití y República Dominicana.

El mandatario estadounidense «utilizará esta reunión como una oportunidad para agradecer a estos países su apoyo a la paz y la democracia en Venezuela».

Venezuela ha tenido cierta influencia política sobre estos países en la última década a través de la alianza Petrocaribe, con la que los cinco reciben petróleo venezolano en condiciones ventajosas.

Bahamas, Haití y República Dominicana, sin embargo, forman parte del medio centenar de países en el mundo que, liderados por EE.UU., han reconocido al líder opositor venezolano Juan Guaidó.

Santa Lucía y Jamaica, por su lado, defienden el principio de no interferencia en Venezuela, por lo que siguen reconociendo al Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro.

Además de hablar sobre la crisis en Venezuela, Trump también quiere «fortalecer la cooperación en seguridad y enfrentar las prácticas económicas depredadoras de China».

Asimismo, el presidente hablará sobre «oportunidades potenciales de inversión energética» en estos países, uno de los pilares de la política exterior estadounidense en la era Trump.

La reunión se producirá días después de la visita ayer del presidente brasileño, Jair Bolsonaro, a la Casa Blanca, con Venezuela centrando parte de la conversación.

El encuentro entre los dos líderes ultraderechistas comenzó con una rotunda afirmación de Trump: «Creo que puedo hablar por ambos países cuando digo que todas las opciones están sobre la mesa».

Esa referencia a la vía militar contradecía al vicepresidente de Brasil, Hamilton Mourao, que en febrero dijo que esta «nunca fue una opción» para su Gobierno.

Pero Bolsonaro no descartó una posible cooperación brasileña en una hipotética intervención militar estadounidense en Venezuela, al negarse a responder una pregunta al respecto.

«Hay algunos temas que, si hablas sobre ellos, ya no son estratégicos (…). Todo lo que discutamos aquí (en privado) lo cumpliremos, pero de algunas posibilidades no se habla en público», indicó Bolsonaro.

La Estrella 

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Caricom source thinks Trump out to split OAS vote

T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the lead­ers of two oth­er coun­tries who re­cent­ly sought peace in Venezuela’s cri­sis aren’t among the five Caribbean lead­ers who’ve been in­vit­ed to meet US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to­mor­row on is­sues, in­clud­ing Venezuela.

While Row­ley wasn’t on that in­vi­ta­tion list, as word of Trump’s meet­ing was an­nounced by the White House yes­ter­day, US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo held dis­cus­sions with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at her Port-of-Spain of­fice.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Stu­art Young told re­porters yes­ter­day the is­sue of the Trump meet­ing and oth­er is­sues will be ad­dressed to­day. He de­clined to con­firm or de­ny if Row­ley—back from his US health check—will be do­ing the speak­ing.

White House press sec­re­tary Sarah Sanders had said ear­li­er yes­ter­day that Trump will meet with the lead­ers of five Caribbean na­tions “in an ef­fort to strength­en co­op­er­a­tion on se­cu­ri­ty and trade is­sues.” Sanders said Trump will “al­so use will use the meet­ing to thank the lead­ers for their sup­port for peace and democ­ra­cy in Venezuela.”

In­vi­tees are Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, Ba­hami­an Prime Min­is­ter Dr Hu­bert Alexan­der-Min­nis, St Lu­cian Prime Min­is­ter Alan Chas­tanet, Do­mini­ca Re­pub­lic Pres­i­dent Dani­lo Med­i­na and Hait­ian Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se.

Trump’s in­vi­ta­tion was is­sued to lead­ers of four of the five Caribbean states which in Jan­u­ary sup­port­ed an Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) res­o­lu­tion re­fus­ing to recog­nise the le­git­i­ma­cy of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro’s sec­ond term: Ja­maica, the Ba­hamas, Haiti and St Lu­cia.

Guyana al­so sup­port­ed the OAS vote. Do­mini­ca, St Vin­cent/Grenadines and Suri­name vot­ed against, while St Kitts, T&T, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos and Be­lize ab­stained.

An­oth­er in­vi­tee to Trump’s meet­ing, St Lu­cia—part of the Li­ma group of Cana­da and Latin states—in­di­cat­ed in Feb­ru­ary it didn’t sup­port Maduro and called for fresh elec­tions. The five in­vit­ed lead­ers will meet Trump at his re­sort in Palm Beach, Flori­da.

Sanders said Trump will dis­cuss po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­er­gy in­vest­ment with the lead­ers, adding the Unit­ed States re­mains “a good friend to the Caribbean and seeks to build on a proud lega­cy as the re­gion’s part­ner of choice.”

But no­tice­ably miss­ing from Trump’s “thank you” meet­ing are the three re­gion­al lead­ers who played a lead­ing role re­cent­ly in try­ing to re­solve Venezuela’s cri­sis peace­ful­ly through di­a­logue: St Kitts/Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Tim­o­thy Har­ris (Cari­com chair­man), Row­ley and Bar­ba­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley.

Trump’s cau­cus with the lead­ers comes two months af­ter Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal cri­sis arose when Na­tion­al As­sem­bly leader Juan Guai­do de­clared him­self in­ter­im pres­i­dent af­ter what he dubbed “in­valid elec­tions.” The US and oth­er coun­tries have sup­port­ed Guai­do against em­bat­tled Pres­i­dent Maduro. While Maduro’s held on, US sanc­tions against his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­ten­si­fied Tues­day. That day, Trump re­it­er­at­ed that “all op­tions are on the ta­ble” re­gard­ing Venezuela, in­clud­ing mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion. He said the “tough­est sanc­tions” are ahead.

T&T and Cari­com have main­tained a non-in­ter­ven­tion, non-in­ter­fer­ence pol­i­cy on Venezuela. At the height of the cri­sis, a Cari­com del­e­ga­tion com­pris­ing Har­ris, Row­ley and Mot­t­ley went to the Unit­ed Na­tions to lob­by for peace­ful res­o­lu­tion, al­so speak­ing to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous oth­er coun­tries. They fur­ther at­tend­ed a Uruguay meet­ing with Mex­i­co and held talks with Eu­ro­pean rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Al­though Cari­com was ini­tial­ly di­vid­ed on Maduro, the del­e­ga­tion at­tend­ed the meet­ings with full Cari­com sup­port. Cari­com’s in­put in Uruguay helped pro­duce the Mon­te­v­ideo Mech­a­nism for di­a­logue.

How­ev­er, Cari­com sources yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian that Cari­com wasn’t snubbed for Trump’s meet­ing.

“The coun­tries in­vit­ed were all orig­i­nal mem­bers of the Li­ma Group in the OAS, which in­cludes the US, Cana­da and oth­er Latin coun­tries. Guyana, al­so a mem­ber of that group, was al­so in­vit­ed but the Pres­i­dent is ill and couldn’t at­tend and on­ly heads of gov­ern­ment were al­lowed. Bar­ba­dos, St Kitts and Nevis and T&T weren’t part of the Li­ma group,” the source said.

But they agreed the meet­ing “is an ob­vi­ous move to di­vide Cari­com on the Venezuela is­sue at least. At the OAS, Cari­com’s 14 votes con­sti­tute a se­ri­ous bloc which can de­ter­mine how votes go, as on­ly three more votes will give a ma­jor­i­ty. So not for the first time, the idea is to split the vote at the OAS for an ini­tia­tive that’s forth­com­ing in sup­port of OAS Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Luis Al­ma­gro, whom Cari­com has strong­ly lined up against. There’ll no doubt be an at­tempt for the five coun­tries to emerge in sup­port of Guai­do and they’ll get some good­ies.”

Cari­com has been urged by some – in­clud­ing T&T’s Regi­nald Du­mas- to pro­pose a can­di­date to re­place Al­ma­gro.

Guardian

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