Is The Bahamas being snubbed by the US government?

Dear Editor,

I believe certain Bahamians have made a mountain out of a molehill by their continued reference of the US government not appointing an ambassador to this jurisdiction since November 2011.

By mentioning this, one is led to believe that Washington is snubbing The Bahamas, while our CARICOM allies Haiti, Dominica, Guyana, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines all have an ambassador.

I, too, fell for this, until I discovered through my own independent research that Canada, Israel, China, Australia, and the United Kingdom all currently have no ambassadors from the US.

Based on the rationale of offended Bahamians, the US places greater diplomatic value on Saint Lucia, Haiti and Dominica than on Australia, Canada and Israel. Obviously, this is not the case.

Maybe Washington is cutting costs, something the current Progressive Liberal Party government should do.

As of 2017, US ambassadors earned between $124,406 and $187,000 per annum — tens of thousands more than the Bahamian prime minister salary of about $86,000.

What’s more, our next door neighbor, Cuba, hasn’t had an ambassador since late 1960s during the John F. Kennedy administration. And one of our CARICOM allies, Jamaica, is also without an American ambassador.

I don’t view the absence of an American ambassador to The Bahamas as a snub by Washington. Our value to the Americans seems to be our strategic location in the Atlantic between their land and Haiti, especially during the 1990s after the expulsion of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the presidency.

With us consuming over 99.9 percent of what we import – coupled with us not having any oil on a commercial scale or gold, silver, diamonds and other precious minerals – I can hardly think of any other significant value The Bahamas has to Washington (perhaps AUTEC on Andros?), despite being one of just six countries with a US pre-clearance.

Moreover, we do have an American embassy and a chargé d’affaires, Usha E. Pitts.

Indeed, Americans can find sun, sand and sea in their own territories such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or even Florida and California.

Americans can survive without The Bahamas. The Bahamas, on the other hand, cannot survive without America. Washington is well aware of this sobering fact.

Still, despite The Bahamas being a blip on the US radar, the absence of an American ambassador in our jurisdiction should not be construed as Washington snubbing us.

— Kevin Evans 

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