OPINION: Caribbean Travel Ban – Some More Equal Than Others

It was recently announced by the United States administration that they have imposed travel bans against citizens of countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria. They have also imposed restrictions on several more African countries and two from the Caribbean: Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda.

Like the George Orwell book, some are more equal than others.

In one fell swoop, two popular tourist destinations for American citizens have been lumped with quasi rogue African and Middle East states often accompanied by extremist ideology internal conflicts. To describe it as unfair is as great an understatement as CARICOM or it’s people not coming to their aid, support and solidarity with the exception of the Caribbean Spartacus, Mia Mottley.

Will the last one leaving that obsolete grouping turn off the lights.

This faux punishing stroke against Caribbean visitors to the USA seems to have ignored the most obvious thing. Travel to America is no longer great again. Closer proximity Canada or Europe are much nicer destinations where Caribbean tourists, the reverse of the usual, can expect a welcome mat and civilized behaviour .

Canadian visitors to the USA have declined by a whopping 23% costing $5.7 Billion. It is probably the same for other world travellers wishing to avoid the unpleasantness that accompanies travel to the United States. In total the USA has lost about 13 million travellers and $30 billion.

51% of those figures will be borne by supporters of the present administration.

Many Canadians have now changed their itineraries for Bahamas, Belize, Mexico and Portugal.

The tourist centric Caribbean or elsewhere could not maintain any political stance that decimates one of their major sources of income besides remittances. That could be next. Come New Year’s Day 2026 the Caribbean diaspora will have to pay a 1% tax on remittances as part of the ugly side of the American Big, Beautiful Bill. There will be more.

It should be clear by now that Caribbean leaders like the Trinidadian Coriolanus intend to paddle their own canoe and our small islands must simply suffer for imperialist whim. It is especially regrettable for Dominica, home of great natural beauty and an exceptional legal mind, that has been put under the heel of the Americans.

Thank God the untouchable Cayman Islands holds over a trillion dollars of American treasuries.

It has become a waiting game.

Notes

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.

His views are his own.

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