When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio came to the recent CARICOM meeting, he promised more cooperation on trade, migration, security and disaster help. Many people in the Caribbean have heard similar promises for years. The key question now is: will we keep repeating the same mistakes, or will both sides finally learn from the past?
The Old Pattern
For a long time, the U.S. has mainly looked at the Caribbean through a security lens: drugs, borders, migrants. Success was often counted in seized cocaine and stopped boats. But Caribbean countries were left to deal with the guns, the deported offenders and the pressure on weak institutions. On trade and investment, there are programs on paper, but the results are limited. The U.S. sells a lot to the region; the region sells much less in return. Climate change makes things worse: hurricanes and rising seas threaten lives and economies, while climate support is still too small and uncertain. Every few years there is a new U.S. “strategy” or summit. There are speeches, photos and communiqués. Then attention fades, and not much changes on the ground.
What the U.S. Needs to Learn
If the U.S. wants a better relationship, it needs to treat past experience as a lesson. That means, for example:
• Not seeing the Caribbean mainly as a security or migration problem, but as a neighbor whose stability is in everyone’s interest.
• Admitting that focusing only on drugs and borders, while ignoring the flow of guns from the U.S. and the impact of mass deportations, has created new problems.
• Taking climate and economic vulnerability as seriously as security.
• Building a long term policy that survives changes of government in Washington.
In short, a learning U.S. would ask: what has worked, what has failed, and how do we build a more balanced approach?
What CARICOM Needs to Learn
CARICOM and its member states also need to change how they act. They have learned, again and again, that big statements without follow up weaken their credibility. They have seen how internal divisions make it easier for big powers to play countries off against each other.
A learning CARICOM would:
• Agree on a small set of shared, clear priorities towards the U.S. (for example: guns, deportations, fairer trade, climate finance).
• Stick to these priorities in practice, not just in speeches.
• Collect better data on how U.S. policies affect crime, banking, migration and daily life—and use that information in talks.
• Improve their own capacity to implement what they decide together.
• This is what it means for a region to behave like a serious, learning partner.
Learning From China’s Role
China is now very visible in the Caribbean. It offers loans and builds roads, ports and other projects. This shows that the region is looking for partners who respond quickly and at scale. But there are risks: debt, dependence and deals that are not very transparent.
A learning region asks:
• What needs has China met that others did not?
• Where have Chinese projects helped our long term development—and where not?
• How can we use having several partners (U.S., EU, China, others) to get better terms from all of them, instead of becoming too dependent on any one?
Turning Promises Into Learning
Rubio’s visit can be just another chapter in the same old story—or a chance to start a new one. For the U.S., learning means coming back with real changes: clearer trade rules, visible climate and resilience projects, fairer security practices and honest evaluation of what does and doesn’t work.
For CARICOM, learning means acting more united, using evidence in negotiations and following through on its own decisions. It also means being ready to say “no” when new offers simply repeat old patterns that have failed.
A learning country - or region - is not one that never fails. It is one that refuses to fail in the same way over and over.
Whether this summit marks a real change depends on whether both the Caribbean and the U.S. are willing to learn from their own history, and act differently this time.