It's Time for The Caribbean’s Sovereign Rail

For fifty years, the global financial system ran on a single dominant rail.  That era is over

THE WORLD AS IT IS — PART XVIII

Tuesday, 3 March 2026

7:35 AM Eastern Standard Time

By CRAIG F. BUTLER, ESQ.

There are moments when commentary is no longer sufficient.

Part XVIII is not commentary.   It is construction.

For weeks we have examined fractures — war, sanctions, mineral leverage, security realignment, the Great Repricing.

Now we move to rails.

The question is no longer who strikes, who sanctions, or who aligns.  The question is: who settles?

Because in a multipolar world, settlement systems are power.

For fifty years, the global financial system ran on a single dominant rail.  That era is over.

Sanctions have been weaponized.

SWIFT has been politicized.

CIPS has matured.

BRICS Pay is forming.

CBDCs are operational.

The world is fragmenting into monetary corridors.  And in that fragmentation lies opportunity.

Part XVIII makes a disciplined argument:

The Caribbean is no longer a peripheral financial basin.  It is positioned to become a sovereign settlement corridor.

The region now sits on a tri-layer architecture:

• Middle-power stability (British regulatory credibility, Canadian banking continuity)

• Sovereign currencies (Bahamian, Jamaican, Eastern Caribbean, Trinidadian, Barbadian)

• Operational digital rails (Sand Dollar, Jam-Dex, DCash)

No other small-state region in the world has this configuration.

What is missing is not currency.  It is clearing.  It is interoperability.

It is a sovereign settlement system that reduces dependence on external rails and anchors the Caribbean in the Age of Consequences.

Part XVIII identifies the gap — and the build.

It argues that:

• Settlement defines sovereignty.

• Clearing defines leverage.

• Digital rails define independence.

• Small states with stability become strategic.

The Bahamas is uniquely positioned to anchor this rail.  Not as rhetoric.  As architecture.

This chapter is not about nostalgia.  It is about infrastructure.

The Caribbean’s sovereign rail is no longer theoretical.

It is the next structural move in a world no longer ruled from one capital.

Part XVIII begins now.

PART XVIII — THE CARIBBEAN’S SOVEREIGN RAIL

Digital money, regional clearing, and the emergence of an independent settlement system

I. The World Is Moving Away From Single‑Rail Finance

For fifty years, the global financial system ran on one dominant rail: SWIFT.  That world is gone.

The U.S.–Israel–Iran rupture, the weaponization of sanctions, the rise of BRICS, and the emergence of digital currencies have fractured the monetary landscape.  Today, the world runs on multiple rails:

• SWIFT (U.S.–EU)

• CIPS (China)

• BRICS Pay (emerging)

• CBDCs (state digital currencies)

• private rails (Visa, Mastercard, fintech networks)

In this environment, small states cannot rely on a single system.  They need sovereign rails — systems they control, not systems they borrow.

The Caribbean is now positioned to build one.

II. The Caribbean’s Monetary Architecture Has Three Layers

Part XVII established the middle‑power scaffolding: Britain and Canada.

Part XVIII builds the sovereign layer above it.

The Caribbean’s monetary architecture now has three distinct layers:

1. Middle‑Power Stability (External)

• British regulatory credibility

• Canadian banking infrastructure

2. Sovereign Currencies (Internal)

• Bahamian dollar

• Jamaican dollar

• Eastern Caribbean dollar

• Trinidad & Tobago dollar

• Barbadian dollar

3. Digital Sovereign Rails (Emerging)

• Sand Dollar (Bahamas)

• Jam‑Dex (Jamaica)

• DCash (ECCB)

This is the foundation for a Caribbean settlement system — a rail that is:

• sovereign

• digital

• regional

• interoperable

• independent of great‑power politics

No other small‑state region has this combination.

III. The Sand Dollar as the Prototype Rail

The Bahamas did not simply launch a digital currency.  It launched the first operational CBDC in the world — and in doing so, it created the prototype for a Caribbean monetary rail.

The Sand Dollar provides:

• instant settlement

• offline capability for outer islands

• regulatory clarity

• financial inclusion

• resilience during shocks

• a sovereign payment channel

In a world where:

• correspondent banking is shrinking

• sanctions are expanding

• SWIFT is politicized

• global rails are fragmenting

…the Sand Dollar becomes a sovereign shield.

It is the first Caribbean rail that is not dependent on external powers.

IV. The Region Is Quietly Becoming a Digital Currency Cluster

Three CBDCs in one region is not coincidence.  It is architecture.

The Bahamas — Sand Dollar

The world’s first fully deployed CBDC.

Jamaica — Jam‑Dex

A retail CBDC designed for inclusion and micro‑commerce.

ECCB — DCash

A multi‑state digital currency across eight countries.

This cluster gives the Caribbean:

• a shared technological base

• a shared regulatory framework

• a shared digital identity

• the ability to build interoperability

Interoperability is the key.  It is how a region becomes a monetary bloc.

V. The Missing Piece: A Regional Clearinghouse

The Caribbean has:

• currencies

• digital currencies

• banks

• offshore centers

• middle‑power scaffolding

What it does not yet have is:

• a regional clearinghouse

• a sovereign settlement system

• a cross‑border CBDC corridor

• a non‑SWIFT payment rail

This is the gap.  This is the opportunity.  This is the sovereign project.

A Caribbean clearinghouse would:

• settle trade within the region

• settle Africa–Caribbean flows

• reduce reliance on U.S. correspondent banks

• insulate the region from sanctions spillover

• create a Caribbean “alternate rate”

• anchor the region in the Great Repricing

This is the rail that must be built.

VI. The Bahamas as the Anchor of the Sovereign Rail

The Bahamas is uniquely positioned to anchor the Caribbean rail because it has:

• a sovereign currency

• a sovereign digital currency

• a mature offshore financial sector

• regulatory credibility

• geographic centrality

• AU–CARICOM alignment

• British and Canadian stabilizers

• a reputation for compliance

• a history of financial innovation

This combination does not exist anywhere else in the region.

The Bahamas is the only jurisdiction that can:

• host the clearinghouse

• host the settlement system

• host the Africa–Caribbean commodities exchange

• host the digital corridor

• anchor the regional rail

This is the sovereign role.

VII. The Strategic Meaning in the Age of Consequences

In a fractured world:

• chokepoints matter

• settlement systems define leverage

• digital rails define sovereignty

• middle powers define stability

• small states with stability become valuable

The Caribbean’s tri‑rail system — British stability, Canadian banking, Caribbean sovereignty — becomes a zone of resilience.

And The Bahamas becomes the sovereign anchor of that zone.

This is not a regional story.

This is an Atlantic story.

This is a multipolar story.

This is a sovereignty story.

VIII. What Must Now Be Built

The architecture is ready.  The moment is here.

The Caribbean must now build:

• a regional clearinghouse

• CBDC interoperability

• a sovereign settlement rail

• a non‑SWIFT corridor

• an Africa–Caribbean payment bridge

• a commodities exchange in The Bahamas

• a Caribbean alternate rate

This is the Caribbean’s sovereign rail.  This is Part XVIII.

Source / Comment

The Bahamas Prime Minister Philip 'Brave' Davis brings focus on Illegal migration and gun trafficking to meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris

The United States reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening partnerships with The Bahamas, and the nations and peoples of The Caribbean

As Chairman of CARICOM, the Bahamian Prime Minister believes it is important for the United States and other partners in the hemisphere to support Haitian-led efforts to stabilize that country and find a path forward out of crisis

Washington, DC - January 17, 2023 – Prime Minister Philip 'Brave' Davis met earlier today with US Vice President Kamala Harris at The White House to discuss a number of issues facing The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean region.

The United States reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening partnerships with The Bahamas, and the nations and the people of The Caribbean.

In discussing items relating to our bilateral relationship, the Prime Minister and the Vice President emphasized the importance of both strengthening efforts to combat illegal maritime migration and reducing the flow of guns illegally entering The Bahamas from the United States.

The Prime Minister also raised the importance of reinstating pre-clearance facilities in Grand Bahama, a critical step to support the island’s economic recovery.

The discussion widened to cover a number of regional issues, including food and energy security, and efforts to combat climate change.

As Chairman of CARICOM, the Prime Minister believes it is important for the United States and other partners in the hemisphere to support Haitian-led efforts to stabilize that country and find a path forward out of crisis.

Source

In the Caribbean, NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO WALK OUTSIDE TO GET INTO A PLANE!

TRAVEL IN THE CARIBBEAN IS TORTURE!

By Professor Gilbert Morris

The beauty of the Caribbean is a distortion field. There are few places in the world where nature displays her moving panoply as agreeably as the CARIBBEAN.

Mottled green and iridescent blue waters, swirling into creamy dreamscape freckled with evergreen pastoral nodes: islands, cays, islets…are an immediate thrill to the senses.

However, when travelling within and across the Caribbean, this tapestry of loveliness aforementioned, gives way first to stupidity, then cruelty, then demotic idiocies.

In fact and effect, travelling within and across the Caribbean reveals our self-abnegation: our careless disregard for each other, in the exhibition of which, it seems, there is no inconvenience or unconscionable stupidity we won’t impose on each other because of our utter lack of process intelligence.

Process intelligence is the knowledge of logistics, people movement and processing, to prevent triage or cascades; essentially the [sic] of a logistics process.

Countries with population, weather, elevation (mountains), languages (4-5 minimum) and currency…have little choice but to develop process intelligence. So Singapore and Hong Kong are small spaces with relatively large populations. Yet they can move 100,000 people through a process in 7 minutes. Jamaica, India and Brazil have large populations relatively speaking…in large spaces and yet are horrendous as processing people.

100,000 people may take two days. (Though, I confess, Jamaica learned something after its devastatingly barbarous start to airport throughput management during the first 5 months of COVID 19).

We encounter our own indulgence in cruelty in the manner in which we designed our cut n’ paste airports largely for planeing and deplaneing flights. Tourists come for the Sun, yet their flights are parked conveniently, 30 seconds from the arrival halls. But locals - more likely to be professionals, dressed for business - must walk 1000 meters in the blistering Sun, to enter an unfumigated, often frowsy, hot plane and sit as operators go casually about their inefficient paper-laden process; asking each other questions in bewilderment about things they do as routine every day…as they themselves sweat like feral Goats!

I flew from Jamaica to Providenciales, to Nassau. This was the “valley of the shadow of death”. Listen: there was not one single element or option or pretence of convenience in the entire trip. Rain or shine, you walk outside like herded Yaks. Some airports still retain the idiotic, absolutely useless processes which they copycatted after 911; such as removing one’s shoes and separating one’s laptops. We understand the regulations for entering America…that’s a different issue. But to impose these waste-of-time procedures (NO ONE UNDERSTANDS) for inter-island travel in the region is demonstrably ridiculous. No country in this region has the analytics to assess a laptop or shoes or a tub of Shea-butter!

One could understand if we eliminated the other logistical inconveniences and kept the ones we copied slavishly from America. But keeping both without regard to the suffering imposed on our own people travelling is demotic.

Once you’ve walked 1000 meters in the Sun, sweating like a mountain goat, and entered the barbecue pit which is the plane, the flights are quite comfy and the staff are sweet and lovely…not to mention to [sic] views out the window. But in my case…cause God mistook me for Job…sat next to me was a sweet lady. She had a TELEVISION…an entire flatscreen television…covering the window at our seat. She had one bag under the seat which appeared large enough to have three dead people in it. And another bag in her lap with enough bottles of lotion to moisturise all of Trinidad. When I sat…she said in the greatest understatement since Jesus shocked the Pharisees: “it’s kinda jam up”. “Indubitably” was my quite reply.

Once one lands in Providenciales…you walk back to Jamaica…that how long is the walk to the transit lounge.

WAIT! What am I talking about…THERE IS NO TRANSIT LOUNGE!

There is an accidental hallway, with a luggage scanner jammed into it like scaffolding in an elevator…and passengers - in the most cruel and unconscionable process of my entire trip - must stand outside on the tarmac, in the Sun…and wait for the door to the pit of hell to be opened. Old people, women with little children…all must stand there as if waiting outside a one toilet outhouse.

It is wrong and must be changed immediately…it is below TCI to allow such a thing.

Additionally, this process is utterly brainless. You leave Jamaica or Dominican Republic, you’ve passed through security with all the useless, idiotic processes…you deplane for transit and must have your handhelds scanned again, for what: the Bazooka you bought in duty free?

Once you make it into the departure lounge - your spleen and patience stretched to the limit - there aren’t enough seats, the air is stale, everything costs $11 dollars…and they’ve rented out every corner of the departure lounge like a ghetto fairground for retail tourist trap shops!

Then…you are marched out to walk in the Sun…the 40 years in the wilderness to find the land of Canaan, to get to the plane.

Again, the flight is pleasant the staff are sweet and lovely and the views are divine…except for the mattress sized TV in my case!

One lands at Nassau and the torture begins anew: mainly you must walk to Gethsemane, across the isles of Patmos, down Berma Road to get to immigration. I denounce this as idiocy, cruelty and stupidity. Why should you suffer thus in your own country with a design so clueless about human comfort?

Whether is supposed to spur innovation. Denmark has bad weather, as does Finland, Sweden, Switzerland so that motivated them toward innovation as a means of cultivating comfort. We seem to just copy form anywhere (mostly Fort Lauderdale for Jesus sake), and force ourselves into their designs, which anticipates NOTHING about our actual lives.

In the Caribbean, NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO WALK OUTSIDE TO GET INTO A PLANE!

If cooling the plane and gangways is expensive…why isn’t that our first innovation with solar power to ensure comfort and convenience in planeing and deplaneling?

In principle, the hotter it is outside, the cooler the gangway and the plane would be, without adding to energy costs!

It’s specific, measurable, small scale and if it works, everyone would copy us….AND I LIKE THAT!

During COVID I travelled to Dubai. Upon landing, there must have been 20-30,000 people from the various arrivals.

In minutes the airport lines were gone!

Why?

Cause dey fast?

Their hands don’t move any faster than ours.

No! They did something before they built the airport: they committed to eliminating lines as part of an ambition to build a spectacular airport in which the first consideration was HUMAN COMFORT!

How can we claim to be hospitality destinations when domestic and inter-Caribbean travel is wretched, stupid, cruel and demotic?

“Charity begins…”, y’all been to Sunday school….!

Source

Caribbean diplomacy: An endangered species

By Sir Ronald Sanders:

Caribbean governments are in danger of weakening still further their diplomatic capacity endangering its effectiveness, and imperiling their countries’ maneuverability in a harsh world.

Industrialized nations have several instruments on which to draw in their relations with other countries.  Among these are military might, economic clout and diplomatic capacity.

If their security is threatened by other states or non-state actors, such as drug traffickers and terrorists, they are able to deploy their military; on the economic front, they can apply trade sanctions withdraw financial assistance or institute measures to halt cross-border transactions; in diplomacy, they have well-staffed, well trained and well informed foreign ministries and missions abroad who bargain for their interests.  When diplomacy fails, big countries have economic clout and military might on which to fall back.

For small states, such as those in the Caribbean, diplomacy is the only instrument they have to advance their cause and defend their interests in the international community.

In this connection, Caribbean governments should place enormous emphasis on making their diplomatic capacity as strong as possible.

But, there is a growing tendency in many countries of the region to focus diplomacy in the Head of Government.  Many Heads of government, already bogged down with urgent and pressing domestic problems have assigned the foreign affairs portfolio to themselves.  In doing so, they either do not attend crucial meetings that impact their countries, or they attend without the full understanding of complex issues that only exclusive ministerial responsibility backed by expert analysis allows.  In each case, their country’s interest is not well served.

Beyond this, even where governments have appointed foreign ministers, foreign ministries are not seen as vital - or even on par - with ministries concerned with domestic issues.  Therefore, the financial and other resources that they get in annual budgets are inadequate to the extremely important job they have to do on behalf of their nations.

Worse yet, little attention appears to be paid to where and why overseas missions should be located, and who would be best to man them.  In many cases, governments have followed the traditional road establishing missions where they are now least needed and neglecting capitals and international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), where they are most required.

It cannot be in the best interest of any country for its diplomatic missions to be regarded as a pasture to send unwanted nuisances or reward political friends.  Diplomacy, as has been pointed out, is a vital tool for small countries and its best brains should be appointed to its service.

There is a most important role for Heads of Government in a nation’s diplomacy.  But, it is a role best played after the most careful diplomatic preparation that lays the groundwork for success.  Otherwise, what should be the tool that clinches a deal in a blaze of glory will fail like a damp squib.  Occasional successful forays by Heads of Government in international and bilateral negotiations should not be mistaken as a prescription for how accomplishment is to be achieved.  Often, in these circumstances, the apparent success simply happens to serve the interests of the other government or institution involved.

When the European Union (EU), a grouping of 27 large nations, recently brought their new Constitution into effect, they appointed a Foreign Minister in addition to a President.  In effect, what the EU nations did was to strengthen their global diplomatic outreach in trade, economic cooperation and investment.  In addition to their own national foreign ministries, they now have the additional services of EU missions around the world, most of which have been beefed-up with additional expert staff.

In this connection, while the recently initialed Economic Union Treaty of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is to be welcomed as the right step forward, it is disappointing that it failed to advance the diplomatic capacity of six small independent states who would most benefit from strengthened and unified diplomacy.

The draft Treaty, which is to be ratified by the parliaments of each country before formal signature and implementation, reads as follows in relation to foreign policy:

“The organisation shall seek to achieve the fullest possible harmonisation of foreign policy among the Member States, to seek to adopt, as far as possible, common positions on international issues, and to establish and maintain, wherever possible, arrangements for joint overseas representation and/or common services”.

Words such as “fullest possible”, “as far as possible” and “wherever possible” are usually inserted in Treaties of this kind where the governments intend to make the least change to the existing situation and where the real intention is to carry on business as usual.  The signal that this sends is unfortunate, for the six independent members of the OECS would benefit enormously from a fully joined-up diplomatic service particularly in the present precarious conditions that confront their economies.

They least, of all, can afford layer upon layer of government.  Already their tax payers are paying contributions to upkeep both the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Secretariat and the OECS Secretariat.  Arguably, they maintain the OECS Secretariat because they believe that participation in it brings them greater strength than they have individually.  If that is the case, then surely establishing and strengthening joint diplomatic capacity is not only in their bargaining interest, it would also reduce their individual expenditure on foreign affairs or more effectively focus their spending.

Of course, a major difficulty the OECS faces is their neglect of the requirement of the existing Treaty to harmonize their foreign policies “as far as possible”.  Thus, three of the six independent states are members of the Venezuelan-initiated organization, ALBA, and three are not, and three of them have diplomatic relations with China while three maintain formal relations with Taiwan.  Only a serious and visionary dialogue, supported by rigorous analysis of their long-term interests, will create a rational policy.

The global political economy is not friendly to small states of even tolerant of them.  In a world being remorselessly driven by the interests of the larger and more economically powerful states – in which China and Brazil must now be included with the US, the EU and Japan - Caribbean countries need better and stronger diplomatic capacity to advance their causes and protect their interests.

January 29, 2010

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