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Emerging Trade Blocs and Caribbean Emigration 1

From an economic point ofview, the contemporary Caribbean presents a paradoxical picture. On one hand most Caribbean countries appear fairly well integrated in the world economy. But the Caribbean region itself appears more fragmented than ever. Each country has its own privileged trade ties to former colonial and other developed nations in Europe and North America, but economic links within the region are weak. This is the result of a long historical evolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Caribbean countries became integrated in the North Atlantic segment of the then-emerging world economy. Structured as plantation economies, they specialized in the export to the metropoles of sugar and other primary commodities and had to import everything else. The very profitable nature of the "colonies" made the Caribbean a battlefield for the European powers up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, thanks to massive U.S. investments noticeably in the sugar industry, the banana plantations, and in related infrastructure (ports, transportation, etc.) the Caribbean region became somewhat more integrated. As a result of the uneven distribu-