Foreign relations of Jamaica
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Jamaica has diplomatic relations with most nations and is a member of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. In the follow-on meetings to the December 1994 Summit of the Americas, Jamaica--together with Uruguay--was given the responsibility of coordinating discussions on invigorating society. Jamaica also chairs the Working Group on Smaller Economies.
Jamaica is an active member of the Commonwealth of Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement (G-77). Jamaica is a beneficiary of the Lome Conventions, through which the European Union (EU) grants trade preferences to selected states in Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, and has played a leading role in the negotiations of the successor agreement in Fiji in 2000.
Historically, Jamaica has had close ties with the U.K., but trade, financial, and cultural relations with the United States are now predominant. Jamaica is linked with the other countries of the English-speaking Caribbean through the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and more broadly through the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). In January 2000, Jamaica began serving a 2-year term on the United Nations Security Council.
Prime Minister Percival James Patterson visited Cuba at the end of May 1997. In the fall of 1997, Jamaica upgraded its consulate in Havana to an embassy, and the nonresident Jamaican ambassador to Cuba was replaced by a resident ambassador.
Disputes - international: none
Illicit drugs: Transshipment point for cocaine from Central and South America to North America and Europe; illicit cultivation of cannabis; government has an active manual cannabis eradication program
A good resource about Jamaica's foreign policies is Holger Henke's book "Between Self-Determination and Dependency: Jamaica's Foreign Relations, 1972-89," Kingston: University of the West Indies Press 2000.</P>
- See also : Jamaica