Here’s how $100 million will help with climate change and security in the Caribbean

The Biden administration plans to help Haiti tackle the scourge of illegal arms and ammunition trafficking by investing in a criminal investigative unit in collaboration with the Haitian national police.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who spent the day meeting with Caribbean leaders, including Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, during a historic visit to Nassau, Bahamas, on Thursday, announced the initiative as part of more than $100 million in commitments the Biden administration is making in the region in the areas of climate change, clean energy and security.

“Too many people in all of our countries are dying from gun violence,” she said.

Ahead of the visit, the White House announced that it is creating a new position inside the Justice Department for Caribbean firearms prosecutions to maximize information sharing between the U.S. and the region. But at the top of a bilateral meeting with the president of the Dominican Republic, the secretary general of the 15-member Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, and most of its leaders —the prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were no-shows — Harris announced additional efforts.

The U.S., she said, will also support the recently established Caribbean Crime Gun Intelligence Unit in Trinidad and Tobago to train officers and help bring criminals to justice. The administration will create a Haiti Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit in collaboration with the Haiti National Police to facilitate investigations and the prosecution of foreigners and human trafficking, which affects the entire region.

“Our administration is committed to disrupt gun trafficking. We are committed to interdict shipments of arms and ammunition and hold traffickers accountable,” Harris said.

The vice president didn’t go into details on how the support will work. While Caribbean leaders said in a statement that they welcome the increased resources, they want the United States to better manage its porous borders to control the illegal pipeline of weapons flowing from its shores.

The increase in the illegal exportation of guns from the United States, Caribbean leaders emphasized, “contributes significantly to crime and violence in the region, causing death and disabilities, and compromising safety and democracy.”

A recent study found that the ready accessibility of firearms and ammunition in some neighboring countries, including the U.S., combined with inadequate screening of mail and cargo shipments, “undermines the often-robust controls on firearms and ammunition adopted by many Caribbean states.”

Also, most of the firearms trafficked from the U.S. are traced to states with seaports like Florida.

The same study found that U.S. exports of illegal firearms contribute significantly to violent crime, including violent deaths, in CARICOM member states. The latter is almost three times the global average and firearms are used in more than half of all homicides in the entire region. In some countries that proportion reaches 90%, the study commissioned by the the Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for Crime and Security in Trinidad and the Small Arms Survey found.

During the visit Harris highlighted the United States’ investment of more than $100 million, including $98 million in new funding from the United States Agency for International Development, to address climate, energy, food security, and humanitarian assistance in the Caribbean.

Harris is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit The Bahamas since the country achieved independence from Great Britain 50 years ago next month. The moment was not lost on Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis or other Caribbean leaders who flew into Nassau for their fourth multilateral meeting with her — meetings that came on the heels of years of complaints from regional leaders about being ignored by multiple U.S. administrations

“We are not starting anew. We are building on the work and dialogue of last June’s Summit of the Americas, in Los Angeles, and in regional meetings held since,” Davis said as he opened the meeting shortly after 3 p.m. inside a conference room at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island. “Coming together here in The Bahamas, let us seize the moment — to accelerate and deepen our engagement, and to work together to produce tangible outcomes.”

Davis said leaders are pleased by Harris’ decision to travel to the region and told her he believes they “all feel and appreciate the depth and sincerity of your commitment to the region and to our people.” He then listed the subjects to be raised: energy and hunger, climate resilience, development finance and economic opportunity, and regional cooperation and security.

Harris said that as a neighbor, the United States shares common bonds and interests with the Caribbean, and believes the partnership “is essential to our mutual security and prosperity.”

“Strengthening the U.S.- Caribbean relationship is a priority for me, as it is for President Joe Biden,” she said. “These meetings have proven to be very important and essential to the strength of these relationships.”

Harris also noted that in all of the engagements she has led with regional leaders, they have discussed the priorities and identified specific areas of collaboration,” Harris said. “Since we last met, I do believe we have made significant progress.”

Most of that progress has been in the area of the “climate crisis,” she said, noting that “Caribbean nations are on the front lines.”

The United States last year launched a new partnership designed to help the region transition to clean energy and to promote energy security and climate resilience. They have also worked together to help build capacity for disaster preparedness.

“Since we last met, we have also worked to bring investors to the Caribbean to identify new opportunities for clean energy infrastructure, including through trade missions, we have provided $28 million in food security assistance,” said Harris, who also added that the the United States will lead a diplomatic campaign on multilateral development bank reform to help Caribbean nations access low-cost concessional financing.

Still in their discussions, Caribbean leaders emphasized the need for a balanced approach to tackling some of the issues the U.S. deems to be a priority.

“Leaders recognized that to address the challenge of energy security, there must be a balanced approach to develop the region’s hydrocarbon resources and to maximize renewable energy potential,” they said in a statement. “They agreed that the Caribbean-US engagement must continue to examine areas for deepened collaboration where opportunities exist.”

They also called for a greater commitment from the United States to assist the region in tackling hunger and supporting regional efforts to do so, especially as the tourist-dependent countries face rising food costs and huge import bills.

“Commitments already made must be implemented, and that the two sides should examine additional ways to address this challenge, which affects the Region and the global community,” the CARICOM statement said.

Another area where the two sides aren’t likely to see eye to eye is how to address the security issue in Haiti. While the Dominican Republic has pushed for an outside security force to be deployed to Haiti, leaders of CARICOM in February pushed back on supporting such a plan and instead said they will focus on helping the beleaguered Haitian national police force.

During her meeting, Harris pushed for a multinational security force to come to Haiti’s aid.

She also noted that the country continues to suffer from a worsening humanitarian and security crisis. This week Haiti experienced back-to-back disasters: deadly floods and an earthquake that together left over 50 people dead and thousands more displaced.

“I will say that our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and all who have been impacted by, just this week alone, the flooding and the earthquake. The international community must continue to support the Haitian people in light of the devastating humanitarian and security crisis in that country,” Harris said. “The United States supports the development of a multinational force to Haiti and today I am pleased to announce $53.7 million in new humanitarian aid for Haiti.”

Harris’ visit here came three days before more than three dozen Haitian “stakeholders” are expected to fly to Jamaica for three days of meetings focused on trying to broker a “Haitian solution” to the country’s paralyzing political crisis and deepening instability. CARICOM has appointed three former Caribbean prime ministers to lead the negotiations. The former leaders of the Bahamas, St. Lucia and Jamaica recently met in Miami ahead of the Jamaica meeting.