Florida Governor Visits Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Florida Governor Jeb Bush's long-planned official visit this week highlighted some of the bilateral issues we have with the United States.

Mr Bush runs a state of about 15 million people with a budget of over $70 billion a year (compared to our billion dollar plus budget and 325,000 inhabitants). He is also the brother of the current American president, George W Bush, although that hardly endears him to the local political class.

This is not the first time Mr Bush and Prime Minister Christie have met. Two years ago they discussed the governor's efforts to promote Miami's candidacy for the Permanent Secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The Christie government - led by Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell - went on to support Trinidad as the site for that facility, in solidarity with Caricom.

Other topics of mutual interest include education reform, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, relations with Cuba, the treatment of Cuban refugees, and new trade and investment opportunities - such as the stalled proposals for LNG terminals in the Bahamas to supply South Florida power stations.

Jeb Bush is no stranger to the region. He has a degree in Latin American Studies, and worked for two years in Venezuela before moving to Miami in 1980 with his Mexican wife. He worked in real estate before becoming involved in politics.

Bush has had strong ties to Miami's Cuban community ever since he was chairman of the Dade County Republican Party. He played an important role in the 1986 election of Bob Martinez as Florida's first Hispanic governor, and in 1989 he was campaign manager for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to serve in Congress.

After an unsuccessful bid for the governor's office in 1994, Bush won the1998 election at the age of 45 and was the first Republican governor ever to be re-elected in Florida. His administration has focused on education reform and environmentalism - he signed legislation to protect the Everglades and opposed federal plans to drill for oil off the coast of Florida.

Analysts say one of his most important goals is to secure the FTAA Secretariat for Miami as part of an effort to transform that city into the "Brussels of the Americas", although the movement towards a hemispheric free trade zone has stalled lately. There is also speculation that Bush may run for president sometime after the 2008 election.

Bush has been involved in the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank whose goal is to promote American global leadership. He is also a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy on student achievement in American schools. These two affiliations perhaps most characterise his political career.

During his first term as governor, Bush implemented the A-plus Plan for Education, a programme to improve grades and revamp the public school system by offering students the opportunity to transfer to a private school if their school failed.

Bush says that since 1998, funding for public schools in Florida has increased by over $6 billion and students are reading and performing math at higher levels than ever before. But critics say Florida still lags behind most states on key education indicators - ranking 48th on graduation rates, for example

But the governor's involvement with the Project for the New American Century is likely to turn off most Bahamian politicos, who privately nurse both real and imagined grievances against American leadership. The Project advocates a policy of "military strength and moral clarity" for the US that includes promoting political and economic freedom around the world and extending an international order friendly to US interests.

So-called neo-conservatives believe that while the US can work through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations when possible, it must not be constrained from acting to promote American values around the world. In addition to strategic realism, there is an element of idealism in this thinking.

Besides Jeb Bush, the Project includes the cream of the current American political establishment - men like Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, who is now president of the World Bank, and John Bolten, the ambassador to the United Nations who wants to see his job disappear.

Some argue that the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first decisive action of those leaders, who "chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana."

This is the elephant in the room that we face just across the Gulf Stream. It is a political and economic reality that we can do little to influence - and certainly not by jaunts to the Far East or by talking big with the brothers down south. But, in spite of the racial undertones at play here, simply looking the other way and pretending that the reality doesn't exist gets us nowhere fast.

What we can do is exercise clear judgement and sensible diplomacy. For much of our history the Bahamas has been closely tied to Florida; despite our centuries-old status as a British Crown colony. The Florida Keys were once considered northern out islands and Bahamians were South Florida's earliest settlers. Today, our entire way of life depends on American tourists and investors. And our security relies on American enforcement against illegal immigrants and drug traffickers.

So allocating our scarce resources to diplomatic adventures in China and India rather than Haiti and Florida is a lot like spitting in the wind. Despite all the historical, geographic, cultural and economic ties we have with these close neighbours, our current leaders prefer to play in deeper water - to no apparent gain. The $30 million that China has had on the table as a gift for years is spent by American tourists in Nassau every few weeks.

Likewise, Bahamians are among the biggest contributors to the Florida economy. Jeb Bush is governor of Florida and his brother is the president of the United States. We should be about leveraging these connections, not beating up American reporters, pretending Haiti doesn't exist, sucking up to Castro and wasting resources on intitiatives that produce pompous communiques, but little of substance.

The Americans make themselves look foolish by carrying on their ridiculous vendetta against Castro, their top politicians beholden to the powerful Cuban lobby in an important electoral state. This will likely not change until Castro's death. But let's face it - Cuba is no utopia and when all is said and done, what does Castro offer us that the Americans don't?

We can boil all these issues down to a very simple test - in what kind of society would we personally like to live? Why don't our politicos (especially the foreign minister and the prime minister) get their medical check-ups and treatments in Cuba? Why don't they invest their hard-earned cash in Cuba? Why don't they send their children to Cuban schools? Why don't they shop in Cuba? Do they even vacation in Cuba? Can anyone in Cuba or China visit the Bahamas when they feel like it?

Jeb Bush's official visit is no doubt an effort by the Americans to put all this into sharper focus, even though he could only afford a day from his busy schedule - unlike our politicians who see time wasting as a major achievement.

Comments

[James Moore]

I very much enjoyed this article. What is with the government's infatuation with the twin towers of communism - Cuba and China? Neither one will add much of anything to the nation's GDP.

The Cuban people are kept in poverty and the Chinese - if they wanted to enjoy the beach, have some frontage on the Pacific ocean. As to the Chinese enjoying gambling they have their own mecca called Macau, which dwarfs anything the Bahamas has; not to mention the 8000 mile journey.

If the americans want the Cuban doctors to rejoin their families, why not? Whatever happened to freedom of choice?

I think the Chinese want to put a permanent stamp (the stadium) on the Bahamas since I am sure they are jealous of the relationship with the US. What better way to stick it to the US, so to speak.

It is so important to try and patch up any differences with the US because of their importance to us now and into the future. Remember always stand by your friends!!!

Can you explain the importance of any relationship with China to the Bahamas?

[tb]

straight to the point, no nonsense reality. we needed to hear this.

[Brooks Prouty]

I agree with Mr. Smith. Prime Minister Christie's lamentable (and bumbling) approach to the Cuban Dentists Crisis has brought to the attention of many (who ordinarily could not care less about Nassau) the awareness that your PM is a moron. It's time for the Bahamas to grow up and refamiliarize itself with the sort of statemanship that its first prime minister exemplified, Sir Roland Symonette.

Look, there is no treasure in China and even less in Cuba. What sort of education does one need in order to realize that the Bahamas' best friend is the United States, not thugs like Castro and Chavez? I am a citizen of the U.S. and we have an expression up here: you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. What will it take for Bahamians to realize that their current leaders are scratching the country raw?

As an American, I would like to see your country form a close relationship with my country. What will that take?