Cynthia Hamilton

Chair Director: African and African American Studies

University of Rhode Island
E-Mail: cha6734u@uri.edu

70 Race& Class

eastern European nations. Already secure in its trade relations with Canada and western Europe through the European Economic Community, the new trade arrangements promised to reduce substantially trade deficits, as these countries had agreed to trade in the local currency. Also, for the first time, Grenada would be able to plan with projections of assured revenue from her agricultural exports because of guaranteed sales, where price fluctuations and the frequent gluts in the market for bananas and spices had in the past led to severe deficits when Grenada traded with the US alone. Additionally, increased demand for Grenada's agricultural exports could have the possible consequence of encouraging greater productive efforts in the country as a result of increased opportunity. The objections made to Grenada's new arrangements were that the agreements with the Eastern bloc might have the effect of locking her into agricultural production over the long run, and maybe even necessitating that exports be diverted from western Europe to eastern Europe. The trade arrangement, however, must be viewed within the larger scope of Grenada's regional objectives.

The Grenadians had already attempted to fight the isolation being imposed by US policy by diversifying its trading partners and under- taking more trade, both economic, cultural and educational, with its CARICOM neighbors. But the influence of Reagan's surrogates, like Edward Seaga in Jamaica, Tom Adams in Barbados and Eugenia Charles in Dominica, consistently blocked these efforts to reduce dependence on the US. What started out as a conservative breeze in the Caribbean with the election of Seaga in 1980, turned into a hurricane as right-wing leaders came to power in St Vincent, Antigua, St Kitts/ Nevis. The murder of Walter Rodney16 in Guyana in 1980 unmasked, for the still doubting, the political face of the Burnham government in that country. Trinidad maintained its political isolation under the conservative leadership of Chambers. The US had its own regional approach to development. The Caribbean Basin Initiative (first proposed in 1981) was to be a way of further securing these Caribbean 'allies' and their Central American counterparts in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. The Initiative which has passed the US Congress cost over $400m, a disproportionate share of which was channeled in the form of military assistance to El Salvador. In addition, the Initiative established tax free zones (adding to those already operating) for corporations in participating countries and duty free entry into the US of most products being produced by these corporations. The most active lobbying for the Initiative came from the private sector in the region and a coalition of top corporate executives in the US, including David Rockefeller, the heads of Eastern Air Lines, Alcoa, Coca Cola, Con- trol Data, and other corporations already with a stake in rescuing their Caribbean and Central American market. The acceptance of the