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Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley has cred­it­ed for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump with un­in­ten­tion­al­ly push­ing Cari­com to strength­en its food se­cu­ri­ty part­ner­ships, fol­low­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s threat to im­pose tar­iffs on Chi­nese-made ships.

Speak­ing on Sun­day night as the out­go­ing Chair at the open­ing of the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, Mot­t­ley said, “It is true that the ac­tions of the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment and their promise to im­pose tar­iffs on all Chi­nese-made ships cre­at­ed a cat­a­lyst for move­ment in a way that we could not find on our own. And if any­thing, we must thank Pres­i­dent Trump and the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for that. Mer­ci­ful­ly, there was a stay of ex­e­cu­tion on the im­po­si­tion of that tar­iff a few months ago.”

She said the re­gion con­tin­ues to face ris­ing liv­ing costs that are mak­ing dai­ly life hard­er for Caribbean peo­ple.