Illicit firearms, climate and Haiti to top VP Harris agenda in historic Bahamas visit

The Biden administration is creating a new position at the U.S. Department of Justice to help tackle the illicit trafficking of U.S. weapons into the Caribbean — many of them being shipped through South Florida ports.

The new initiative is among several new investments Vice President Kamala Harris will announce Thursday as she makes a historic visit to Nassau, Bahamas, for a high-level meeting with leaders of the 15-member Caribbean Community known as CARICOM and the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is not part of the mostly English-speaking regional bloc of former British territories but its president, Luis Abinader, has joined in the discussions with Harris over U.S.-Caribbean relations for over a year.

During the visit, Harris will seek to highlight the U.S. commitment and plans for strengthening what had been fraught relations during the administration of Donald Trump. One step she hopes will demonstrate that is the announcement of the creation of the Coordinator for Caribbean Firearms Prosecutions in the Justice Department to increase information sharing as traffickers are prosecuted.

“Disrupting illicit firearms trafficking in the Caribbean is a shared priority for the United States and our Caribbean partners and an important aspect of our cooperation to address rising levels of crime and violence in the region,” a senior administration official said.

The official added that Harris will also discuss the implication of the new bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was signed into law by President Biden last year. The law increases penalties for firearms trafficking and “straw” buyers — individuals who fraudulently purchase weapons and then resell them. The practice is common in states like Florida and has helped to fuel unlawful weapons exports and violent crime in the Caribbean region.

Since 2020, the Caribbean area, with its sun-kissed beaches and laid back lifestyles, has also become a top smuggling destination for illegal U.S. firearms, which are leading to rising homicide rates. The Caribbean region now accounts for about half of all firearms export investigations by U.S. federal agencies.

That led several Caribbean governments including The Bahamas earlier this year to support the government of Mexico in a $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers. Their friend-of-the-court brief in the First U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston was later followed by a request from three members of Congress to its investigating arm, the General Accounting Office, for a probe of the illegal pipeline into the region.

Harris’ visit to The Bahamas is historic. She is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island-nation since its independence in 1973. The last high level White House visitor was President John F. Kennedy in 1962 when the Bahamas, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence next month, was still a British territory.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis is currently the chairman of the Caribbean Community group CARICOM and will co-host the gathering alongside Harris. In a brief statement, Davis said his 700-island archipelago, just off the southeastern coast of Florida, is proud to welcome Harris during Caribbean-American Heritage Month as “we celebrate the enduring partnerships through our nations.”

“Together, we will address the challenges of climate change and work towards a sustainable future,” he said.

Harris will be joined by several senior administration officials ,including Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols. On Friday, Nichols will make remarks at the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 Climate Resilient Clean Energy Summit hosted by the Atlantic Council’s Caribbean Initiative on Paradise Island. The intention of the conference is to facilitate connections between Caribbean and U.S. governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and philanthropists to identify, build and operate new clean energy projects in the region.

The Bahamas meeting will be the fourth discussion between Harris and Caribbean leaders. Like the previous discussions, including one at last year’s Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, the focus will be on climate change, access to low-interest development financing, clean energy and security.

The senior administration official said Thursday’s gathering is“really an acute demonstration of how important she sees this partnership and how important she sees leader-level engagement with Caribbean counterparts.”

“She views strengthening our partnership is key to our shared prosperity and security,” the official said about Harris, who is of Jamaican descent.

Following a bilateral meeting with Davis shortly after her arrival, Harris will move into wider closed-door discussions with leaders. She will announce more than $100 million, including $98 million in new funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to address climate, energy, food security, and humanitarian assistance in the Caribbean.

A primary focus of the Bahamas meeting will be the climate crisis and initiatives being taken through the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030. Among the steps already taken is the facilitation of clean energy infrastructure development, climate adaption projects and technical assistance projects, her team said.

“We have provided assistance to deploy solar micro-grids to develop geothermal power projects to train a clean energy workforce and to sport battery storage and energy grids among other projects,” said the senior administration official. “We’ve built Caribbean capacity with regard to disaster preparedness, and we work to bring investors to the Caribbean to identify and develop new clean energy projects.”

Another issue of priority for Caribbean leaders is access to development financing,on. which Harris has worked with leaders in Washington and elsewhere, the official said. She has asked the new president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, to join her as she informs leaders of the U.S. policy position for reforming multilateral development lending.

Haiti

There will also be special attention on Haiti where the humanitarian and security crises are worsening., and Davis is set to host a three-day meeting on behalf of CARICOM, starting on Sunday in Jamaica with some of Haiti’s politicians in hopes of forging a governance agreement in lieu of elections.

Though Caribbean leaders in February rejected the call to support the deployment of a multinational force to help Haiti’s beleaguered national police, Harris will reiterate the United States’ support for such a force.

She will also announce more than $50 million in new humanitarian aid and will announce support for the extension of the Haitian Hemisphere Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Program Extension, trade preferences for Haiti, which are due for renewal in 2025, the senior official said.

At the meeting the vice president will also announce tens of millions of dollars in new initiatives in the area of energy and climate and also focused on Haiti, a member of CARICOM.

Among the other announcements Harris will make:

▪ $20 million for the Caribbean Climate Investment Program to mobilize the private sector to deploy new technologies to help with climate adaptation.

▪ $15 million to support disaster risk reduction and emergency response efforts.

▪ Assistance to help Caribbean nations investigate and prosecute firearms trafficking.

▪ The establishment of two new U.S. embassies and additional diplomatic support presence in the eastern Caribbean, where residents from the region have to travel to Barbados for embassy services.