There’s an old idea America never quite buried.  Manifest Destiny, the belief that some people are meant to move freely, expand, claim space, and others are meant to be managed, monitored, or blocked.

The latest announcements from the current US Administration, imposing new limits on travel and emigration, feel less like policy housekeeping and more like a familiar reflex.  Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica have now been added to the list of countries facing partial restrictions.

This is the same United States that sits comfortably within the due diligence machinery for Citizenship by Investment (CIP) programmes across the Caribbean.
The same U.S., whose standards are cited, relied upon, and deferred to, yet only two of the five CIP Caribbean countries have been sanctioned in this way.

So, what exactly is the signal being sent? Because it doesn’t read as neutral.

At the same time, this administration is busy projecting strength, borders, and “order” quietly redrawing who gets to belong, who gets to enter, and who must now explain themselves yet again. The language hardens elsewhere too, with renewed posturing further south, reminding the region how easily power slips from diplomacy into dominance.

History reminds us that Manifest Destiny was never just about land. It was about hierarchy. About whose movement is framed as an opportunity and whose is framed as a threat.

For small Caribbean states, law-abiding, cooperative, and deeply entangled in global compliance regimes, this moment should prompt sober reflection.

Because this pattern isn’t new, Antigua and Barbuda won its WTO dispute on offshore gaming, a landmark case. The response was not compliance, but circumvention, as the United States quietly expanded its own online and offshore gaming space.

Then came the grey lists, blunt instruments that practically decimated Caribbean offshore banking, put correspondent banking relationships at risk, and suffocated legitimate financial activity.  Simultaneously, the economies with the big stick and their direct dependents expanded similar services behind more forgiving regulatory walls.

So, when restrictions appear inconsistent, and the darker-hued parts of the world seem to feel them first, we must ask:
Is this about policy, or posture? Security, or symbolism? Preserving order or self-serving imperialist tendencies?

It increasingly feels like a medicinal philosophy is applied inconsistently: impose restraint, correction, and discipline on the darker-hued world, while intensifying pressure against those of us who dare to aspire, innovate, and elevate ourselves toward a quality of living that might approach, or even surpass, theirs.

The Caribbean has learned, painfully, that global rules are rarely applied evenly.
But each time it happens, the mask slips just a little further.

Anyways, Monkey Know which Cassie Tree Fu Climb!!