Dear Editor,
There is a rhetorical technique as old as power itself. You begin with something no reasonable person can deny, then use that reasonableness as a bridge to something no reasonable person should accept. The current moment in global politics, and in the domestic and foreign policy of the United States in particular, is saturated with this manoeuvre. It deserves a name, let us call it the seasoning of reasonableness. A sprinkling of legitimate concern designed not to solve a problem but to make the disproportionate, the coercive, and the authoritarian palatable.
The pattern is remarkably consistent where a genuine issue is identified, one that resonates with ordinary people because it touches their real anxieties. The range of issues is broad, border security, drug trafficking, the cost of higher education, the risks of artificial intelligence, trade imbalances, democracy in Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, the rights of Cuban doctors working overseas and so on. These are not invented problems, they exist, they matter, and they deserve serious policy attention but in the hands of the current American administration, the legitimate concern is never the destination, it is the on ramp.
The Architecture of the Manoeuvre – The technique follows a three-beat rhythm. First, articulate a concern that most people share. Second, escalate the response far beyond what the concern warrants. Third, when challenged on the escalation, retreat to the original concern and accuse critics of dismissing it. The reasonable premise becomes both the launching pad and the shield.
Consider the case of border security. Sovereign nations have every right, indeed, a responsibility, to manage their borders, to know who is entering, and to enforce immigration law with consistency and fairness. That is the reasonable kernel, however, the response has been militarized ICE raids in churches and courthouses, the deportation of legal residents and veterans, the separation of families as deliberate policy, and the erosion of due process protections that took decades to build. When civil liberties organizations object, the response is swift and predictable, “So you’re for open borders?” The seasoning of reasonableness does its work; the critic is forced to relitigate the premise rather than challenge the excess.
Or consider trade! No serious economist would argue that trade relationships should never be revisited, that supply chain vulnerabilities do not matter, or that trade deficits are irrelevant to domestic industry. These are legitimate subjects of policy debate, but random unilateral tariffs, tariffs of 145 percent on Chinese goods are not trade policy, they are economic bludgeoning, designed not to rebalance trade but to assert dominance, punish, and restructure global commerce by fiat. The reasonable concern about manufacturing resilience is the seasoning, the unreasonable reality is a tariff regime that functions as a tax on American consumers while destabilizing the very trading system that underwrites global prosperity.
The pattern recurs with almost algorithmic precision. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes deserve thoughtful evaluation, but the administration’s response has been to gut civil rights infrastructure, freeze federal hiring, and mandate the removal of DEI language from government agencies as though the words themselves were contagions. Concerns about government spending are legitimate, but they do not justify an unelected technology entrepreneur being granted authority to dismantle agencies, fire career civil servants by the thousand, and restructure the machinery of government with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. The reasonable concern is the ticket but the destination was always somewhere else.
The Caribbean Feels the Pattern – For those of us in the Caribbean, this technique is not merely an American domestic curiosity as it arrives on our shores with material consequences. Drug trafficking and organized crime are genuine scourges in our region. They corrode institutions, claim lives, and undermine the governance capacity of states that are already stretched thin. No Caribbean leader, no Caribbean citizen, disputes this, but when the United States invokes drug trafficking as the justification for behaviour that looks less like partnership and more like coercion, the seasoning of reasonableness is doing its work. The crime is real, the question is whether the response serves the stated purpose or some other, less acknowledged one.
We have watched as the administration has used the language of security to exert pressure on Caribbean governments, pressure that extends well beyond any plausible counter-narcotics objective. The recent deportation flights, the characterization of entire populations as vectors of criminality, the implicit and sometimes explicit threats to sovereignty, these are not the actions of a partner combating a shared threat. They are the actions of a power using a legitimate concern as cover for something else, the reassertion of a hemispheric dominance that treats small states as instruments of American domestic politics.
The trap is exquisitely constructed. Caribbean leaders who push back against overreach risk being painted as soft on crime, as enablers of the very trafficking networks that torment their own people. The reasonable premise, drugs are a problem, becomes the cage. One cannot challenge the disproportionate response without appearing to deny the underlying reality. I am sure you can see the pattern in Cuba, Venezuela and in the new visa applications requirements.
An Old Playbook – Those of us from formerly colonized societies recognize this technique in our bones. The civilizing mission was the original seasoning of reasonableness. Colonial powers did not announce that they were extracting wealth and subjugating peoples, they announced that they were bringing order, education, Christianity, and the rule of law to societies that lacked these things. The premise contained just enough truth, there were societies without formal legal systems as Europeans understood them, to make the entire enterprise appear not merely defensible but noble. The unreasonable superstructure of exploitation was built on a foundation of selectively reasonable observation.
The structural logic has not changed. What has changed is the vocabulary, “Civilization” has become “security,” “Order” has become “compliance,” “The white man’s burden” has become “the rules-based international order,” invoked selectively, applied asymmetrically, and abandoned the moment it constrains the powerful. The seasoning changes with the era but the dish remains the same.
The Deeper Problem – The most corrosive effect of this technique is not the immediate harm of any single policy, though that harm is real and often devastating. The deeper damage is epistemological, when reasonable concerns are systematically instrumentalized, reasonableness itself becomes suspect. Citizens learn to distrust legitimate policy arguments because they have seen too many of them function as Trojan horses. The boy cries wolf, and eventually the village stops listening even when there are actual wolves.
This is profoundly dangerous for democratic governance. Democracy depends on the possibility of good-faith disagreement, on the assumption that when someone raises a concern, they are actually concerned about the thing they claim to be concerned about. When that assumption collapses, politics ceases to be a contest of ideas and becomes purely a contest of power. We are further along that road than many wish to acknowledge.
For small states, for the Caribbean, for Small Island Developing States, for all those nations that navigate global politics with limited leverage, the stakes are particularly acute. We cannot match power with power. Our instrument has always been argument, the moral force of principled positions, the insistence that rules apply equally, the appeal to shared norms. When the seasoning of reasonableness poisons the well of genuine argument, it is our instrument that is most damaged.
What Is to Be Done – Naming the technique is itself a form of resistance. When we can see the pattern, the reasonable premise, the disproportionate response, the retreat to the premise when challenged, we are better equipped to engage with it. We can say, Yes, border security matters, and no, that does not justify what you are doing. Yes, drug trafficking is a plague, and no, that does not give you the right to treat sovereign nations as subordinates. Yes, there are legitimate concerns about human rights in Cuba and the success of the economic model, and no, it is wrong to starve a population to force regime change.
The task is to refuse the false binary. The technique works precisely because it presents only two positions, accept the entire package, reasonable premise and unreasonable action together, or be cast as someone who denies the problem exists. The intellectually honest position, the position that serves both truth and justice, is the one that holds both ideas simultaneously, the problem is real and what you are doing about it is wrong.
That is not a comfortable position, it satisfies neither the wielders of power nor their most absolute opponents but it is the position of reason, actual reason, not the decorative, instrumental kind. In a political moment defined by the abuse of reasonableness, the most radical act may be to insist on the genuine article.
By Professor C. Justin Robinson
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal,
The UWI Five Islands Campus
Dear Editor,
On several occasions I have read the comments coming from the Police Union and I ask myself, don't these people know the impact that good policing has on a country? Where did it go wrong? So questions have to be “What is the purpose of a police force? Who are the police protecting? Who is the police serving?”
That last question might sound ticklish but I believe that those of us who did this since in the seventies do not recognise policing nowadays. And for those of you who are thinking that was then, I say look at the statistics. Go back in the books and see how often there were police strikes or police threatening to strike. No, we contained the strikes and threatening strikes. I cannot recall the police force ever having a public dispute with the Minister of Justice.
Our present Prime Minister who had the choice of two mature police officers and a lawyer who literally campaigned against the then sitting Minister of Justice got the mandate from the people to nominate one of the three as Minister of Justice. But instead of following up he negotiated the Ministry of Justice away for a minister who had very little to no experience in that field.
So what can be done. The books are still there, and it is even easier nowadays. because everything can go on the phone. So even if they can't remember everything, the theoretical part is a fingertip away. With a few experienced instructors and mentors it should not be that strenuous.
I might sound boastful, but when it relates to the police and keeping order in the country, it is the government who makes the laws but the police and other extraordinary police officers who make sure that these laws are carried out.
This is the reason I expect the police to be exemplary because basically they run things. I had already ended this letter when I heard of another fatal accident including a motorcycle.
I do not know what level of pride I would have, being the governor, the prime minister, the prosecutor, the chief of police and possibly even the ombudsman of a piece of land 16 square miles with approximately 50,000 inhabitants and cannot find a solution for the irresponsible manner in which drivers conduct themselves, continuously causing fatal traffic accidents.
Russell A SIMMONS
Dear Editor,
In Dutch we say "waterdicht " and in English "airtight". Anyone can go back to the letters that I have written to you and they will not be able to show me where I have insulted anyone. When I declare anything I am always open to be corrected. Someone sent me the 'talk' of the prime minister in which he elaborated on the density of the traffic.
Even though criticizing politicians and other government officials is fair game I will not react the way some people suggested. What I will mention though is that, that part of his talk was not airtight.
The prime minister who gave a dissertation on the reasons for the density of the traffic and along with that the amount of main roads leading to and through the different districts and villages, either omitted or forgot to mention one of the reasons that one of every two residents of Sint Maarten is able to purchase a motor vehicle. Which is that more and more both auto dealers and banks are making it easier for citizens to be able to buy a motor vehicle. It reminds me of campaigning.
I will not state that this was done intentionally, but history will show that too often we neglect or forget to mention the affluent in not so pleasant matters. Many years ago on Mamma's Pearls program, traffic congestion was also a topic. At that time I suggested 'car pooling'. Another caller responded "If I leave my car home and my wife who don't have a driver's licence, take in sick, what you want me to do?"
I answered him: "That is why we have an ambulance and police departments". For many years, whoever was in government knew and never stop knowing that the motorised traffic was intensifying. I and a great deal of your readers know this because I have written to you about it on several occasions.
That was not good enough. All of a sudden after March 13th, we have to look how we going to get over Marigothill. My father used to tell us "If you can't find a solution for something, do not criticize it." I believe that part of the solution could be, have different departments and entities, work night hours. Heavy equipment and trailer trucks should work from 6pm to 6am and nobody holding anybody hostage with pay for night hours.
Also government should seriously look into the maximum size of all buses, regular as well as tour buses and school buses. And of course regulate public transportation, so that inhabitants of all villages have access to public transportation. Intensify the control on gypsies.
Russell A SIMMONS
Dear Editor,
In a recent commentary on the latest CARICOM meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the author briefly noted that Washington’s renewed focus on the Caribbean has a great deal to do with China’s growing footprint in the region. That passing remark provoked a familiar question: “What is China really up to?” The suspicion is that something must be wrong whenever Beijing finances a port, a road or a solar farm.
Yet if the starting point is the realities of Caribbean and other small island developing states (SIDS), a different interpretation emerges. The more uncomfortable story is less about China misbehaving and more about others failing, for decades, to deliver what these countries have clearly said they need.
Across SIDS, the diagnosis is well established. These states are among the most climate vulnerable in the world, yet many are classified as middle or high income, which makes access to concessional finance and debt relief extremely difficult.
They often pay more in debt service than they receive in climate finance, while the annual adaptation finance gap runs into billions of dollars.
One hurricane can wipe out the equivalent of a year’s GDP overnight. Leaders have said bluntly that the global financial system was never designed with their economies in mind.
Even when money exists on paper, getting to it is a maze. Accessing climate and development funds means high transaction cost, long delays and a bias toward large projects and loan based instruments that deepen already heavy debt burdens.
Many development banks and philanthropies still perceive small islands as “high risk, low scale” clients: too small to matter, too complex to fit standard project models. In practice, countries on the frontlines of climate change are kept at the back of the financing line. In that context, it is hardly surprising that Caribbean and other small island governments are paying close attention to what China puts on the table.
Over the past 15 years, Chinese state lenders and firms have become major players in Latin American and Caribbean infrastructure and energy, extending tens of billions of dollars across the region and backing ports, transport links and power projects. Globally, the Belt and Road Initiative has driven record levels of overseas construction and investment, with a growing share in renewable and “green” sectors.
For small states struggling to finance resilient infrastructure, these are not abstractions; they are potential roads, hospitals, fibre optic cables and solar parks that domestic budgets and traditional partners have not delivered at scale.
China has also branded itself as a demand driven, South-South partner. Its official discourse stresses mutual benefit, non interference and respect for national development plans. Where traditional donors often favour small, incremental projects and heavy policy dialogue, China has been prepared to discuss larger, more visible infrastructure packages that sit squarely on ministers’ priority lists. In market terms, Beijing has chosen a segment others under served: big, executable investments in countries with high needs and few alternatives.
At this point a basic question arises, one that sits in the background of any CARICOM-US conversation about “competition” in the region. Nations, just like firms, operate in a world of competition for market share – of influence, trade, investment and ideas. Competition and diversification are applauded when private companies or Western governments vie for contracts.
Why should that same competitive logic suddenly be suspect when the player is China? If it is considered healthy for European or American actors to fight for infrastructure or telecoms deals in the Caribbean, on what principled basis is similar behaviour by China treated as inherently improper?
None of this means the risks are imaginary. There are serious concerns about debt sustainability, opaque contracts, environmental and social safeguards, and the dangers of leaning too heavily on any single partner – China, the United States, Europe or anyone else for that matter.
The wider region already offers examples of underperforming projects, cost overruns and governance strains linked to external financing. Caribbean institutions and citizens are right to demand that every deal – Chinese or otherwise – meet tests of value for money, resilience and sovereignty.
But acknowledging risk is not the same as declaring China’s role illegitimate. Its growing presence is better read as a symptom of a deeper structural problem: a persistent mismatch between what the traditional aid and climate finance system offers and what small, vulnerable economies actually need.
The 2024 SIDS conference in Antigua and Barbuda, for example, called for a retooled global financial architecture, for vulnerability based access to concessional resources and for far more adaptation and transformation finance. These are moderate asks: align rules with the realities of economies whose per capita income hides extreme exposure to shocks.
Progress has been sluggish. In that vacuum, China and a few others have moved faster to respond to infrastructure and connectivity gaps in small states.
Seen from this angle, the real scandal is not that China is willing to finance ports, hospitals or solar plants in small islands. It is that, after decades of speeches about shared vulnerability and climate justice, it took so long for anyone to respond at scale to clearly articulated needs.
China’s rise in the development marketplace exposes a hard truth: the current menu of instruments from traditional donors and institutions still does not match the risk profiles, fiscal constraints and project realities of SIDS.
The strategic question for Caribbean and other small island governments – on display in every encounter with Washington, Beijing or Brussels – is therefore not “China or the West?” but “How do we use competition to get a better deal from all of them?” That means insisting on transparency and strong safeguards in Chinese backed projects, while pushing multilateral and traditional partners to modernise their products: more grants and guarantees for resilience, simpler procedures, and tools tailored to small administrations and small but urgent projects.
For vulnerable island societies, the imperative is to stay clear eyed about every external partner and to defend long term interests with discipline. But they should also reject narratives that cast them as naïve pawns in other people’s geopolitical games.
When China steps into spaces others have left empty, it is not automatically breaking the rules. More often, it is behaving like any competitive state in a crowded marketplace – reading demand, adjusting its offer, and reminding the rest of the world that needs ignored for too long will always find a new supplier.
Michael Willem
Dear Editor,
You can believe me that I am not the smartest person. But for forty-one years I did the best job in the world. That job afforded me the opportunity to be involved in every last thing. My father pointed that out to me at one time and I disputed it until he asked me if I can arrest the queen.
After giving it some thought I mentioned the Attorney General. He said I expected you to go there but the Attorney General will not arrest her, he would send you to arrest the queen and you will bring her to him. Where am I going with this?
I believe that if someone approaches me to do no matter what, legally I have to be disciplined enough to know whether I am in a position to do it or not. So when I hear rumours that the present Chief of Police will be appointed Secretary General (a.i.) to the Minister of Justice I said to myself, when is it going to stop?
Because of past experience and because I have had to say “I told you so”, let me start by saying “things don’t go so”. Those two positions/functions are not compatible.
I can understand that the minister of justice and the chief commissioner want the same results, but the chief commissioner should not be the advisor. The chief commissioner will be advising the minister of justice on what steps to take against the chief commissioner and his police force. I have seen strange things happen here, so I hope this does not happen.
Russell A SIMMONS
