Trump Kills the Iran Deal, Kim Meets Trump in Singapore, US Embassy Opens in Jerusalem and Syria Is Struck

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 July 2018 | Reporting Period: 3 April – 2 July 2018

Quarterly Briefing

• The United States, United Kingdom and France strike Syrian military targets with missiles on April 14 following a chemical weapons attack in Douma on April 7 that killed dozens of civilians.
• President Trump announces US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, promising to reimpose all sanctions and beginning a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Tehran.
• The US Embassy opens in Jerusalem on May 14; Israeli security forces kill 62 Palestinians along the Gaza border fence on the same day in the deadliest single-day toll of the Great March of Return protests.
• President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meet in Singapore on June 12 in the first-ever summit between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader; Kim signs a vague commitment to “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
• Venezuela’s disputed presidential election on May 20 returns President Maduro to power; the US, EU and most of Latin America reject the result as fraudulent.
• Cuba formally transfers power from Raúl Castro to Miguel Díaz-Canel on April 19, ending 59 years of Castro family rule over the island.

Prologue: The Rules-Based Order Under Stress

The second quarter of 2018 delivered a series of events that collectively challenged the post-1945 architecture of international agreements, alliances and norms. The United States withdrew from a multilateral nuclear agreement negotiated by its own government just three years earlier, reimposing sanctions that would reshape global energy markets. The US unilaterally moved its embassy in a disputed city, triggering the deadliest day of violence along Gaza’s border in years. Western powers struck a sovereign state with cruise missiles in response to a chemical weapons attack, outside any UN authorisation. And a US president sat across a conference table from a man whose state runs political prison camps and whose nuclear weapons programme threatens its neighbours, without securing any concrete commitments to disarmament. For Jamaica and the Caribbean, these events mattered primarily through their effects on oil prices, investment confidence and the stability of the international system on which small economies ultimately depend.

Syria: The Western Missile Strikes

On 7 April 2018, a chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma killed at least 43 people. The attack was attributed by the United States, United Kingdom, France and most of the international community to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, which denied responsibility and was backed in that denial by Russia. On 14 April, the US, UK and France conducted coordinated missile strikes against Syrian chemical weapons research, production and storage facilities. Over 100 cruise missiles were fired at three sites. Russia condemned the strikes but did not attempt to intercept them. The strikes were widely interpreted as a limited punitive action — a signal that chemical weapons use would incur a military response — rather than an attempt to alter the course of the Syrian conflict. The Syrian civil war, now in its seventh year, continued.

The End of the Iran Nuclear Deal

President Trump’s announcement on 8 May that the United States was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the 2015 agreement that had halted Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief — was one of the most consequential foreign policy decisions of the Trump presidency. The JCPOA’s other signatories — the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union — declined to follow the US withdrawal, instead attempting to construct mechanisms to preserve the deal’s economic benefits for Iran. These efforts were substantially frustrated by the reach of US secondary sanctions, which threatened non-US companies doing business with Iran with exclusion from the US financial system.

For energy markets, the JCPOA withdrawal’s consequences were significant and immediate. Iranian oil exports began to fall as buyers sought alternatives ahead of November’s reimposition of energy-related sanctions. Brent crude rose above $75 per barrel — providing welcome relief to oil producers globally but adding to the Caribbean’s fuel import costs. For Jamaica, which imports essentially all its oil, higher prices represented additional strain on the current account at a time when the domestic economy was gaining momentum.

Jerusalem, Gaza and the Violence of May 14

The United States opened its relocated embassy in Jerusalem on 14 May 2018, with a ceremony attended by President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law and the Israeli government. The move fulfilled Trump’s December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and represented a unilateral departure from decades of US policy that had treated Jerusalem’s status as a matter for negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians. On the same day, on the Gaza border, Israeli security forces fired on protesters participating in the Great March of Return, killing 62 Palestinians and wounding approximately 2,700 — the highest single-day toll since the 2014 Gaza war. The United States blocked a UN Security Council investigation.

The Gaza protests, which had begun on 30 March, continued through the entire quarter. They reflected the accumulated desperation of a population of two million living under an eleven-year blockade, with over 50 per cent youth unemployment and no economic horizon. The UN, human rights organisations and most governments condemned the scale of force used by Israeli forces; Israel maintained that it was defending its border from incursion. CARICOM nations, including Jamaica, expressed concern at the UN about the loss of Palestinian civilian life.

The Singapore Summit: Historic but Vague

The summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore on 12 June was genuinely historic: no sitting US president had ever met a North Korean leader. The joint statement Kim signed committed North Korea to “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” without specifying any timeline, verification mechanism or sequence of steps. In exchange, Trump announced the suspension of US-South Korea military exercises — a significant concession that surprised South Korean and Japanese allies — and praised Kim personally. Critics noted that the summit had delivered a propaganda coup for a regime that had spent decades seeking legitimacy through nuclear weapons development, without obtaining any concrete disarmament commitment. The diplomatic process continued through the quarter; its ultimate outcome was deeply uncertain.

Venezuela’s Disputed Election and Cuba’s Transition

Venezuela’s presidential election on 20 May was characterised by the exclusion of leading opposition candidates, voting irregularities and a turnout that official figures placed at around 46 per cent — itself a historic low. Maduro was declared the winner with 68 per cent of the vote. The United States, European Union, Canada and most of Latin America declared the result fraudulent and refused to recognise Maduro’s new mandate. For the Caribbean, the election result confirmed that the Venezuela crisis was entering a new phase of institutionalised autocracy backed by deep economic dysfunction. PETROCARIBE’s continuing deterioration was a direct consequence.

Cuba’s formal transfer of power on 19 April from Raúl Castro to Miguel Díaz-Canel ended sixty years of Castro family control. Díaz-Canel, 57, was a Communist Party loyalist with no family connection to the revolution. His accession did not signal political liberalisation; Raúl Castro remained First Secretary of the Communist Party. But it represented a generational shift whose implications for Cuba’s future trajectory, and for Caribbean diplomacy, would become clearer over time.

Looking Ahead

The Iran sanctions timeline is now clear: energy-related sanctions take effect in November, and Iranian oil exports are already falling. Oil prices are likely to remain elevated. The North Korea diplomatic process will be tested by whether substance can follow the symbolism of Singapore. The Gaza situation remains a chronic source of instability with no apparent political horizon. Venezuela’s crisis will deepen, with consequences for the Caribbean’s energy arrangements and its own stability. And the global trade architecture faces its most acute test since the 1930s as the US and China move toward a full tariff confrontation. Jamaica heads into the second half of 2018 with its own fiscal programme on track and tourism performing strongly, but the international environment provides little margin for complacency.

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Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.

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