The first meet­ing of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment for 2025, which takes place next week in Bar­ba­dos, is shap­ing up to be sig­nif­i­cant be­cause of the de­ci­sions ex­pect­ed to be tak­en by the re­gion­al bloc.

The agen­da for the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing cov­ers a range of is­sues for the ad­vance­ment of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and hu­man and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, such as food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, the on­go­ing chal­lenges in Haiti, crime, dig­i­tal re­silience, and ex­ter­nal re­la­tions.

Ma­jor ar­eas of fo­cus are the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), mar­itime and air trans­port, and repa­ra­tions.

These is­sues and the ex­pect­ed at­ten­dance of Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) sec­re­tary-gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res and Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen, un­der­score the im­por­tance of this re­gion­al gath­er­ing.

How­ev­er, mat­ters not cur­rent­ly list­ed on the agen­da may come to the fore­front.

Loom­ing large over the meet­ing is the re­cent­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed sec­ond ad­min­is­tra­tion of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, al­ready be­ing re­ferred to as Trump 2.0.

There are grow­ing con­cerns that sev­er­al of the poli­cies be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by this new ad­min­is­tra­tion could set back progress on sev­er­al mat­ters of crit­i­cal im­por­tance to Caribbean coun­tries.

The re­gion­al as­pi­ra­tions en­cap­su­lat­ed in the theme for the meet­ing, Strength in Uni­ty: Forg­ing Caribbean Re­silience, In­clu­sive Growth and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, should now be in­ter­pret­ed as a call to ac­tion for re­gion­al lead­ers, who must come up with new strate­gies for Cari­com’s en­gage­ments with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

This emerg­ing chal­lenge must have been weigh­ing on Cari­com sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, who, in a re­cent state­ment on the up­com­ing heads of gov­ern­ment meet­ing, said: “Our ob­jec­tive will be to en­sure that, as we plan, our ac­tions are strate­gic, mean­ing­ful and ben­e­fi­cial to all the cit­i­zens of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.”

At a prepara­to­ry meet­ing last month, Dr Bar­nett re­flect­ed on Cari­com’s achieve­ments over the past year, not­ing that “we am­pli­fied our ef­forts to en­sure that our unit­ed and col­lec­tive voice was heard at some of the high­est-lev­el in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums.”

Stay­ing on that course is vi­tal.

Main­tain­ing sta­ble and friend­ly US-Cari­com re­la­tions is cru­cial for many rea­sons, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause the US is the largest eco­nom­ic part­ner of the Caribbean and the re­gion is the third bor­der of the US.

That is why many re­gion­al lead­ers are view­ing with trep­i­da­tion Trump’s “Amer­i­ca First” ap­proach to for­eign pol­i­cy, which has the po­ten­tial to un­der­mine Cari­com’s in­ter­ests. His Gaza takeover plan runs counter to Cari­com’s clear­ly stat­ed sup­port for a two-state so­lu­tion to the Is­raeli–Pales­tin­ian con­flict; ef­forts to dis­man­tle the US Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID) may put a stop to fund­ing for the Kenya-led Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port Mis­sion in Haiti; and US with­draw­al from the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment rep­re­sents an ex­is­ten­tial threat to the re­gion’s Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS).

An­oth­er ma­jor con­cern is mass de­por­ta­tions. In re­cent days there has been a push by some Cari­com heads, in­clud­ing St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­salves, for that is­sue to be added to the agen­da for the Bridgetown talks.

Al­though the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has not yet giv­en at­ten­tion to US-Caribbean re­la­tions, re­gion­al lead­ers need to be pre­pared for when that hap­pens and next week’s meet­ing is the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do just that.

That means mov­ing be­yond the usu­al rhetoric to push for poli­cies — based on what­ev­er shared eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal ideals still ex­ist — that will ben­e­fit Cari­com cit­i­zens.

US-Cari­com re­la­tions will have to be re­de­fined.