We are frankly surprised by the tone, accusation of 'self-pity' and general superciliousness of Dr Rollin Bertrand in his ridiculing of Jamaica's legitimate efforts to protect its national interest in trade with its partners in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

Hopefully, by tomorrow's end - in Guyana - of a meeting of regional trade, veterinary and food-safety officials to begin to draft the outlines for a harmonised sanitary and phyto-sanitary regime for CARICOM, people like Dr Bertrand may be less inclined to sneer at this country's complaints. By the time the CARICOM leaders meet for their next full summit in a fortnight's time, Dr Bertrand may acknowledge the legitimacy of Jamaica's case.

There are immediate reasons for our concern about Dr Bertrand's approach in weighing in on the trade issue in an article in the Financial Gleaner. He is no arbitrary by-stander, but the chief executive officer of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL), which is the parent of Caribbean Cement Company in Jamaica.

Second, in his seeming eagerness to brand Jamaica's concerns insipid, Dr Bertrand fails to separate the specific and immediate cause of Kingston's disagreement with Trinidad and Tobago - The Patty Quarrel - from the broader matter of, as he sees it, inappropriate economic policies that have rendered Jamaica's manufacturers uncompetitive against their regional partners.

We should, perhaps, inform Dr Bertrand of some facts at the heart of this issue.

Last November, a Jamaican firm, Tastee Ltd, reached an agreement with a Trinidadian firm to distribute its iconic Jamaican beef patty in that country. Tastee consulted the Jamaican veterinary authorities and their Trinidadian counterparts about requirements.

Trinidad and Tobago's food-analysis body, having reviewed samples of the product, gave Tastee a positive analysis. On the request of the Trinidadians, Jamaica's Veterinary Services Division provided further documentation on the product, including the source of the meat used in the patties. Yet, when the products arrived in Port-of-Spain, there were varying additional requests for document. It took six weeks, additional testing and the noisy intervention of the Jamaican authorities for them to be cleared.

We understand that there will be stresses and strains in regional trade and cooperation arrangements, such as CARICOM; but Dr Bertrand obviously caught an oversized red herring with his assertion that Trinidad and Tobago was merely "enforcing normal phyto-sanitary standards" and his characterisation of Kingston's complaint as "blowing it out proportion".

Borrow-and-buy mentality

Jamaica, we would remind him, has a trade deficit with CARICOM of over US$1.6 billion. Last year, it imported US$1.68 billion from the region - US$1.4 billion being petroleum products - and exported a mere US$66.2 million. Indeed, Jamaica accounts for about one-third of intra-regional trade. The fact that this country's government may have employed bad economic policies, or that Jamaicans have a 'borrow-and-buy mentality', does not make it illegitimate for the Jamaican authorities to insist that firms that can compete are able to do so in CARICOM markets - in accordance with the rules.

Another surprising point in Dr Bertrand's analysis is his glib dismissal, as required by the Treaty of Chaguaramas, for national treatment, with regard to certain factor costs, across what is supposed to be a seamless market, heading towards a single economy.

We believe in the logic of CARICOM, but in a community, we all must play by the rules lest it become dysfunctional.

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