Robert Pastor
Essay
Summer
1991
"Driven primarily by security interests, the United States has often oscillated between intervention to prevent a foreign rival from gaining a foothold and neglect when the threat passed... We believe the time has come to consider a new stage in the region's development and its relationship with the United States. We recommend that the region shift toward a new economic strategy based primarily on self-reliance". In turn, the USA should open its markets to Caribbean exports, perhaps as an extension of NAFTA. "US aid and financing should be a complement and supplement, not a substitute, for the region's new economic strategy".
Essay
Summer
1982
If someone asked about a "Caribbean Basin" 20 years ago, you might have referred him to a geographer or to a West Indian plumber. When President Ronald Reagan announced his Caribbean Basin Initiative on February 24, 1982, however, all the questions concerned the initiative. Apparently, everyone now knows where the Caribbean Basin is; indeed, there is a growing impression that we are sinking in it.
