St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said the United States government in 2015 undermined the PetroCaribe initiative.
PetroCaribe is a regional oil procurement agreement between Venezuela and Caribbean member states.
Gonsalves made the disclosure while speaking at the International Seminar “Developing the Present,” hosted by the ALBA Bank in Venezuela.
“I recall how PetroCaribe was undermined by the US government and the sanctions initiated by the then president Obama in 2015 left beneficiaries in the Caribbean suffering collateral damage.”
Banco del Alba is a financial institution dedicated to the promotion of economic and social development, the convergence and complementarity of economic integration processes, the reduction of asymmetries, poverty, and social exclusion, and the unity, development, and strengthening of the Latin American and Caribbean region.
It was started in Caracas on January 26, 2008, by the presidents and/or heads of government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Treaty. They signed the Founding Act of the Bank of Alba at the VI Summit of ALBA-TCP.
The Agreement Establishing the Bank of Alba, adopted in Caracas on November 5, 2008, by the ministerial representatives of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Republic of Cuba, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, and the Republic of Nicaragua, to which Saint Vincent and the Grenadines subsequently acceded in 2011, the Commonwealth of Dominica in 2012, and Antigua and Barbuda in 2019.
It has its headquarters in the city of Caracas and a branch in Havana.
