And though the prospects for cattle trade into Guatemala don't seem encouraging, the Briceno Administration has been steadily strengthening Belize's trade relationship with its neighbors - first, with the formalization of the cattle trade into Mexico, and then with the president's visit and all that that entailed, and now with this collaboration with Guatemala's agricultural leaders.
But with the CARICOM food security conference coming up, it may appear that Belize is trying to have it both ways - committed to CARICOM while courting Central America. We asked the minister about this, and he re-iterated his long held public position: that he has all but lost faith in CARICOM - adding that Belize should be turning to Central America for export because of all the issues we've been having with other Caribbean countries:
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture
"I'll be accompanying the prime minister on that trip to Guyana, a small delegation of Agriculture businessmen, producers, the prime minister and I. But I have said this in previous interview, that we have lost all confidence when it comes to trade with CARICOM. and I've said this before many times, I've said it in the House of Representatives, I mean, Guatemala is 18 million people, Mexico has 123 million, El Salvador is 6 and a half, the future of Belize lies in Central America so while I love our CARICOM brothers, they are our supporters, we are a part of CARICOM as our constitution, it's embedded in there, they supported us when we wanted independence but when it comes to trade, I have huge reservations and so we are not saying we won't trade with them but we are saying that if our brothers in Central American and in Mexico are extending the olive branch to us in terms of trade, we will accept it, definitely. I think that this has been raised at COTED a number of times, I mean, we have been battling with one container of poultry in Grenada for the past six months, one container. They're justification for not allowing it is because the importer didn't have an import permit when he arrived there, apparently the import permit expired because of COVID delays and so on and it got there and they say, oh well you don't have a permit, okay I said, fine, no problem, forget that one. Give me a permit now for five containers. And they could not respond to me so obviously they are protecting their side, not that they have a strong poultry industry but I'm certain that there's one or two big businessmen that import all the poultry from Tyson in the US which is cheap poultry, subsidized poultry, right, so when you do things like that to undermine your fellow brother CARICOM state, it is not in good faith. When we have to take you to court because you are importing sugar from extra regional sources and not paying the CET then that is not in the best interest of CARICOM brotherhood."
And poultry and sugar aren't the only obstacles. Red kidney beans is another problem that's popped up but the minister said that could be easily resolved if Belize starts to export black beans to Mexico and Guatemala:
Hon. Jose Mai
"Right now, we have close to 180 containers of red kidney beans. CARICOM is saying well we are filled, we can't buy your beans right now but just before our harvest came in I suspect that they may have loaded their silos with beans from extra regional sources so when our beans come in, they say, oh we're filled, we're stocked, so we can't buy your red kidney beans. This has been the practice for years, from since I was employed at the Ministry of Agriculture and that was many years ago. So those unethical practices are very common with our CARICOM brothers and sisters and that has to stop. If we are to survive in trade, if we are to do good in trade, we cannot continue undermining each other. Again I will bring that up, I'm sure the prime minister will bring that up when we go to Guyana. But now that the Mexicans have been so kind to us and telling us that they are now going to remove the 125% tariff on black beans then we need to revisit our marketing strategy and productive strategy to say guess what maybe we should produce red kidney beans only for local consumption while change to producing black beans which is consumed in Mexico and Guatemala. I believe that our CARICOM brothers are also looking at us closely and seeing what would be the effect of this declaration, how it's going to affect them so we will see how the discussion goes in Guyana."
Courtney Menzies
"Will we be getting any tariff breaks from Guatemala?"
Hon. Jose Mai
"That is our expectation in the near future, you never know, but that is how our first meeting began with Mexico and today you have seen what happened, we have this tariff free benefits into the Mexican market. So this is how it all began."
