A year ago Wednesday, the White House announced $43 million in funding for humanitarian efforts, biodiversity initiatives, and disaster preparedness projects in the Caribbean. The routine allotment of 0.00006 percent of the $6.9 trillion federal budget did not garner much fanfare in February 2024. Halting the promised funding, however, highlights its importance.
President Donald Trump’s rapacious axing of long-held federal priorities — including the U.S. Agency for International Development, established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 — dried up funds meant to encourage private investment in projects that strengthened island economies and living conditions.
Announced Feb. 26, 2024, one endeavor now on indefinite hold was to create disaster-resilient clean water programs that would benefit an estimated one million people in Haiti, according to the U.S. State Department. Another program helped the Caribbean community combat HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 in Jamaica.
With $1.75 million in funding, USAID also supported the development of CARICOM Development Fund’s Resilience Fund and advisory services to support fundraising and investment. The State Department estimated the Resilience Fund would raise $100 million to expand investment in adaptation and climate change efforts in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean.
Preparing small businesses for investment involves strengthening financial transparency, governance, and other internal structures, said an industry expert who asked not to be identified. These efforts reduce investor risk while ensuring sustainable growth. A well-prepared business can secure better investment terms, deploy capital effectively, and accelerate expansion, the industry expert said.
Small businesses and nonprofits that receive federal funds soon learn the rigors of accepting those funds, which includes in-depth reports on how they are used. Government money isn’t cheap, one Virgin Islands nonprofit organizer said shortly after the funding freeze was announced in late January. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the White House.
Precisely which programs were on hold, which were ending altogether, and what those programs did, was difficult to ascertain because the White House shut down the USAID website and many associated webpages.
CARICOM officials also did not immediately reply to questions about which programs depended on U.S. government funding and the importance of those funds. In Central America, WOLA, the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, polled organizations that worked with migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees; defending human rights; promoting good governance and transparency; strengthening civil society; women’s rights; and counter-narcotics efforts. It found a pause of U.S. government assistance would cut funding at least 77 percent of these efforts, causing at least 70 percent to cut staff.
In the Eastern and Southern Caribbean, many USAID and State Department projects were administered through the Bridgetown-based U.S. Embassy to Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Embassy officials deferred questions about the promised funding to the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C. The State Department Press Office responded to the Source that all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and USAID paused for a comprehensive review.
“Programs that align with U.S. national interests will continue, while those that do not will be discontinued,” a State Department spokesperson wrote without providing a name.
Last February, USAID’s $20 million Caribbean Climate Investment Program pledged $3.6 million for two climate-related Caribbean investment projects. Partnering with two private advisory firms, the money was set to strengthen and prepare small and medium-sized companies for investment.
USAID Administrator Power recently announced $6.1 million in funding for the new Caribbean Resilient Economies and Sectors program. This program is meant to reduce barriers to public and private finance to build climate and disaster resilience and support the adoption of climate-smart practices in critical sectors.
Another $5.8 million was pledged to reduce threats to coastal-marine biodiversity and build more climate-change resilient Caribbean communities, according to a 2023 White House announcement that has now been taken offline.
The programs were to protect endangered ecosystems and species, such as mangroves and coral reefs, as well as communities of sharks, rays, marine turtles, and more. The work was also to enhance climate resilience and the well-being of local communities, including women, youth, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, and Indigenous people. Trump has been particularly zealous about undoing federal protections for these groups, ending all programs to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Several State Department webpages that have so far survived the federal purge are for the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 and the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in the Caribbean.
The U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 aims to bring the region in line with the Paris Climate Accord and other environmental initiatives: regulatory road maps and electrical sector reforms in the Dominican Republic and St. Lucia, renewable energy in Antigua, geothermal energy development in Dominica, and clean energy programs in Barbados, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Suriname.
The four-pillar program also encourages outside investment in the Caribbean, food security, and building regional partnerships.
The U.S. Strategy for Engagement in the Caribbean seeks to increase security, combat violent crime and drug smuggling, head off health threats, and encourage investment and education opportunities in the Caribbean.
