Guaidó Challenges Maduro, Christchurch Massacre, Brexit Paralysis and the Kim-Trump Summit Collapses

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 April 2019 | Reporting Period: 3 January – 2 April 2019

Quarterly Briefing

• Venezuela’s National Assembly president Juan Guaidó declares himself interim president on January 23; the United States, Canada and most of Latin America recognise him while Maduro, backed by Russia and China, refuses to yield power.
• A white-supremacist terrorist kills 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, in the deadliest mass shooting in that country’s history.
• The Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi on February 27–28 ends without agreement; North Korea walked away from talks over US demands to dismantle its entire nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
• The UK Parliament rejects Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement for a second time on March 12; a third defeat follows March 29; the UK requests an Article 50 extension to June 30.
• Mass protests sweep Algeria from February 22 as citizens demand that 82-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika abandon plans to seek a fifth presidential term.
• Venezuela’s collapsing oil output and US sanctions effectively end PETROCARIBE’s utility as a source of discounted oil for the Caribbean.

Prologue: A World Holding Its Breath

The first quarter of 2019 was defined by confrontation, stalemate and violence across four continents. Venezuela became the latest South American nation to tip into an acute constitutional crisis, this time with the full weight of superpower competition bearing down on Caracas. New Zealand shattered its self-image as a safe and remote democracy when a terrorist inspired by European ethno-nationalism murdered fifty-one people at prayer. The most consequential diplomatic experiment of the Trump presidency — direct engagement with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un — collapsed in a Hanoi hotel when the two sides found they had fundamentally different ideas of what a deal entailed. And Britain’s Parliament continued to reject every available path on Brexit while the deadline approached with no clear resolution. For Jamaica and the Caribbean, the quarter brought the final dissolution of any remaining practical value in PETROCARIBE and a continuation of the geopolitical uncertainty that has characterised the post-2016 international environment.

Venezuela and the End of PETROCARIBE

Juan Guaidó, the 35-year-old president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself Venezuela’s interim president on 23 January 2019 in a public ceremony in Caracas, invoking the constitution’s provisions for a presidential vacuum. The United States recognised him within minutes; Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and much of the European Union followed within days. Nicolas Maduro, who had won a disputed 2018 election and whose government had overseen Venezuela’s collapse from an oil-rich democracy into a humanitarian catastrophe, refused to step down. The military, the Supreme Court and Russia and China continued to back Maduro. The result was a standoff: two governments, two presidents, each claiming legitimacy and neither able to dislodge the other.

For the Caribbean, the Venezuela crisis had a specific and immediate economic consequence: the final collapse of PETROCARIBE’s functionality. The programme, through which Venezuela supplied oil to Caribbean nations on preferential credit terms, had been deteriorating since 2016 as Venezuela’s own production fell. The combination of US sanctions and the political crisis had by early 2019 effectively ended Venezuela’s capacity to fulfil PETROCARIBE commitments. Caribbean nations that had relied on the programme were forced to secure oil at commercial prices and face the debt obligations they had accumulated under the programme’s deferred payment arrangements. Jamaica had already begun this transition, but the definitive end of the arrangement marked a permanent change in the region’s energy economics.

Christchurch: Terrorism in a Safe Country

On 15 March 2019, a 28-year-old Australian white-supremacist gunman attacked the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers, killing 51 people and wounding dozens more. He livestreamed the attack on Facebook. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response was widely praised for its compassion and decisive action: within days, New Zealand’s parliament passed laws banning the class of semi-automatic weapons used in the attack, and Ardern led an international effort — the Christchurch Call — to pressure technology companies to remove terrorist content from their platforms.

The attack underlined for tourism-dependent economies like Jamaica that no destination is categorically immune to the kind of mass-casualty terrorism that reshapes visitor perception. New Zealand had been regarded as among the world’s most secure destinations; the attack demonstrated that ideologically motivated lone-actor terrorism could strike almost anywhere. The immediate effect on New Zealand’s tourism was significant; the longer-term effect on destination perceptions globally reinforced the premium that travellers increasingly placed on destinations seen as stable, well-governed and culturally welcoming.

The Hanoi Summit Fails

The second summit between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, held in Hanoi on 27–28 February, ended abruptly without any agreement. The two sides had reportedly been unable to bridge a fundamental gap: North Korea offered to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for relief from all United Nations sanctions; the United States wanted broader denuclearisation commitments before providing economic relief. The talks broke up earlier than scheduled; no joint statement was issued. The failure left the diplomatic process in an uncertain state: neither side had yet declared it dead, but the mutual concessions that a durable agreement would require had proven elusive. North Korea retained its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capability while the US maintained its sanctions regime.

Brexit: The Parliament That Could Not Decide

The UK Parliament’s record on Brexit through the first quarter of 2019 was one of repeated rejection without a viable alternative. Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement was defeated by a historic margin of 230 votes on 15 January, the largest government defeat in modern British parliamentary history. A second defeat followed on 12 March by 149 votes. A third vote on the withdrawal agreement alone on 29 March was defeated by 58 votes. Parliament also voted against leaving the EU without a deal, and was unable to agree on any alternative arrangement through a series of indicative votes. The UK requested an extension of the Article 50 process to June 30; the European Council agreed to a shorter extension to April 12, with a further extension to October 31 possible if the UK participated in European Parliament elections. As this edition is published, no outcome has been resolved.

For Jamaica, Brexit’s continuing unresolved state created sustained uncertainty about post-Brexit trade arrangements, the status of the Jamaican community in the UK, and the future of British investment in and tourism to the Caribbean. The longer the paralysis continued, the longer those questions remained unanswered.

Looking Ahead

Venezuela’s standoff shows no sign of resolution: Guaidó lacks the military support to displace Maduro, and Maduro lacks the legitimacy to end the crisis through accommodation. The North Korea diplomatic process is in suspension. Brexit approaches a new deadline with British politics no closer to consensus. And Venezuela’s collapse has permanently altered Caribbean energy economics. For Jamaica, the first quarter of 2019 ends with tourism continuing to grow, macroeconomic management remaining disciplined and the fundamentals of the domestic economy sound — but the external environment is generating instability that will eventually test those fundamentals.

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.