CARICOM losing faith in ‘good-neighbour’ Uncle Sam

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - On the Caricom front, Trinidad and Tobago has unexpectedly been drawn into a low-level confrontation against the United States, its own major trading partner. Two areas of conflict comprise online gambling (whereby players participate in virtual casinos online), as pursued by Antigua and Barbuda, and rum exports to the US, in which T&T shares concerns with some 14 regional states. Antigua and Barbuda has been subject to adverse reviews about its loose controls that have been known to welcome financial adventurers and worse. For years, Antigua and Barbuda had headquartered the empire of Allen Stanford whose high-profile financial and other activities eventually attracted US law-enforcement attention. In consequence, the man who was for long a household name around the region, is now languishing in US prison, with little apparent prospect of early release.