After completing a busy agenda in France, President Luis Abinader is scheduled to travel to Brasilia, Brazil on 12 June 2025 to attend the Brazil-Caribbean Summit hosted by Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday and Saturday, 13-14 June.
The Dominican Republic and Cuba are the two invited countries to the Brazilian summit that groups the 15 countries that are members of the Caricom Community (Caricom), mostly the English-speaking Caribbean and Haiti. The event will take place at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital.
International organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Latin American and Caribbean Development Bank (CAF), and the Association of Caribbean States will also take part.
The summit’s agenda centers on five key themes — food and nutrition security, climate change, energy transition, risk management, and connectivity. The ongoing Haitian crisis is expected to be a primary focus.
Caricom countries’ traditional approach has been to be very critical of Dominican Republic restricting Haitian migration. The criticism contrasts with the Caricom members’ own very restrictive migration policy whereby they exclude Haitians from taking advantage of free inter-country mobility awarded to other members.
Caricom’s Free Movement of Skills/Labour allows citizens to seek work and engage in legitimate economic activity within the region without a work permit, except for The Bahamas, Montserrat, and Haiti.
In November 2013 during the Danilo Medina administration, Caricom announced that it would “suspend consideration of the request by the Dominican Republic for membership of the Caribbean Community” in response to a Dominican court ruling that revoked citizenship from tens of thousands, mostly descendants from illegal immigrants from Haiti.
The subsequent Luis Abinader administration since 2020 has worked towards better relations with the Caribbean Community, with opportunities seen for inter-regional trade with these.
Caricom came into being on 4 July 1973 with the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas by Prime Ministers Errol Barrow for Barbados, Forbes Burnham for Guyana, Michael Manley for Jamaica and Eric Williams for Trinidad and Tobago. The Treaty was later revised in 2002 to allow for the eventual establishment of a single market and a single economy.
In addressing the Brazil-Caribbean Summit, Brazil’s ambassador Gisela Padovan, who is the country’s Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, has highlighted her country’s capacity to produce food for 1.6 billion people and the potential for enhanced trade and cooperation with Caribbean nations. Padovan sees the Caribbean as a market of 40 million people spread across small countries, as reported in Agencia Brasil.
She hopes to find direct channels to reach the Caribbean market. “They said that they buy a lot of Brazilian food, but that, due to the lack of [port trade] routes, this food first goes to the United States [before reaching its final destination]. Even for tourism, you have to go to Miami first,” she said, pointing out that the five priority issues can be discussed together.
For the diplomat, Brazil has a lot to collaborate with other nations through cooperation involving the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and the National Supply Company (Conab).
On the subject of climate change, Padovan noted that the idea is to present a unified position among the countries of the region, including taking into account the effects of rising sea levels on nations and islands in the Caribbean. “The energy transition is also related to climate change,” she said, while linking the two topics to disaster risk management, presently consisting of six mechanisms. “The idea now is to link these six mechanisms to exchange information,” she said.
Connectivity addresses not only infrastructure issues to access ports by land and sea, but also to expand air connections, increasing the number of flights between countries in the region, and even favoring sectors such as tourism.
“At this point, we are paying particular attention to the so-called Route 1 integration, which provides for a [land] connection between Roraima and Georgetown, the capital of Guyana,” Padovan pointed out, “so that we can sell to the Caribbean without going through the United States”. A similar connection via Suriname is also expected shortly.
Padovan has advanced that the meeting will also address the “dramatic situation in various aspects that Haiti is going through.” She said that Brazil has provided aid in areas such as security and construction, passing on much of its expertise in these sectors. She emphasized that Haitian security professionals were being trained through partnerships with the Brazilian Federal Police. “We will have a technical meeting of the summit to find ways to help this country, which is so important for the region,” the ambassador concluded in the statements carried by Agencia Brasil.
The summit will officially open Friday, 13 June at 9 am with a formal reception hosted by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Itamaraty Palace.
Following the official group photo, leaders will engage in a plenary session featuring an open debate lasting one hour and fifteen minutes, designed to promote candid and dynamic dialogue, as requested by the Brazilian presidency.
The event will conclude with the signing of agreements and a luncheon accompanied by cultural performances.
Read more:
Diario Libre
MercoPress
Agencia Brasil
Reddit – Ask The Caribbean
DR1 News
12 June 2025