Phillips knocks US immigration, trade policies
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Leader of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) Dr Peter Phillips has added his voice to the raging international debate on the immigration policies of the United States and some European countries, as he addressed the opening session of the party’s 80th annual conference at the national arena today.
“We are meeting at a time when progressive parties and progressive principles all over the world are being assaulted and are facing pressure. Migrants are being targeted once again, all over the world and often with ethnic and racist overtones. Racist doctrines, which we would have thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history, are again being revived and sometimes by some of the most powerful office holders in the world,” he told the gathering of PNP supporters and special international guests, including guest speaker, CNN political analyst and former Democratic Party member of the South Carolina state legislature, Bakhari Sellers.
Phillips also said that in the Caribbean military interventionism is again being pushed, pointing out that the blockade against Cuba, which had been loosened in the previous American administration, is once more being revised and strengthened.
The PNP president also commented on the trade war between United States and China.
“Unilaterally imposed trade sanctions are threatening economic dislocation and are affecting us here in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean and threatening the principles of an open global economy, which earned so much progress for small countries and the world generally,” he stated.
He said the PNP had always considered itself to be progressive, committed to the idea of rights for all, stressing that injustice anywhere is a threat to Jamaica as a small country.
Phillips is slated to outline the party’s plans going forward, particularly its commitments to the Jamaican people, when he speaks at Sunday’s highly anticipated conference at the same venue.
Alphea Saunders