As Barbados prepares to welcome a new nonstop flight from Atlanta in November, the eastern Caribbean island is taking on a larger global profile that belies its size.
From becoming a node for African development finance to a host of the Cricket World Cup and a leading voice in the fight against climate change, the nation of fewer than 300,000 people is cultivating an outsized voice in international affairs, Consul General Rudy Grant said May 23 during a Global Atlanta Consular Conversation.
“We’re going to be showcasing Barbados likely in the context of what former [United Nations] Secretary-General Kofi Annan said — that Barbados is a country that punches above its weight,” Mr. Grant said during an interview over lunch at the law offices of Miller & Martin PLLC.
Coming from Miami, from which his consulate covers the state of Georgia, Mr. Grant was visiting for an impactful weekend of connection with the Barbadian community and broader Caribbean diaspora.
Accompanied by representatives of Invest Barbados, he was to take part in a fundraising gala put on by Atlanta’s Carrie-Lynn Grazette Cancer Foundation, followed by a community barbecue showcasing Bajan delectables like coucou and flying fish (the island’s national dish), as well as favorites like pudding and souse and, of course, rum.
Georgia, he said, has become an increasingly important state for the interlinked objectives of investment recruitment and diaspora engagement, both of which Mr. Grant believes will be supercharged by the daily Delta Air Lines flight beginning Nov. 23.
Barbadians like banking veteran David Cutting, the country’s honorary consul in Georgia, and successful doctors, entrepreneurs and community leaders can help contribute to the nation’s economy.
“In a sense, we are pursuing diaspora diplomacy as a critical element in our overall commercial diplomacy objectives,” Mr. Grant said.
But one doesn’t have to be Barbadian to become part of the family, he added, noting that the country’s track record for hospitality is reflected in the fact that it has the highest “repeat factor” of any Caribbean destination. In other words, of those who visit the islands, a higher proportion return to Barbados than to any of its competitors.
“When you come to Barbados, it’s not just about visiting another tourism destination. It is really coming as a visitor, but leaving like family, because Barbadians do make you feel at home,” said Mr. Grant, a former senator, educator and tourism executive who took up his Miami posting in 2022.
Beyond its culinary delights, white sand beaches and marine pursuits, Mr. Grant said a key differentiator is the ability to experience the heartbeat of the island at places like Oistins, a fishing town that comes alive on Friday nights with food, music and dancing.
“People leave the west coast of Barbados, where you pay $10,000 a night for a room, and move to Oistins to enjoy the socializing,” he said.
View video of the full conversation:
Solid Business Footing
This down-to-earth feel blends with a highly professionalized global business environment, Mr. Grant said.
Barbados has shed its erstwhile reputation as a tax haven, having been removed from watch lists compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union in 2023.
In 2024, a tax reform program raised its corporate tax to 9 percent, with a “top-up tax” getting some multinational corporations to the OECD’s global minimum of 15 percent.
Following a restructuring of the economy, the country is on a more solid financial footing, with reserves ballooning from $400 million in 2018 to $1.6 billion today.
A hub for captive insurance, Barbados is recruiting investment in sectors like fintech, banking, renewable energy, medical cannabis, real estate and infrastructure, and more.
Whatever the sector, the ideal inbound investment, according to Mr. Grant and Invest Barbados officials, is one that creates employment, fosters knowledge sharing and generates foreign exchange.
A New Republic’s Assertive Climate Posture
Mr. Grant spoke to an Atlanta audience a week before his prime minister, Mia Mottley, was set to join a forum on Small Island Developing States in Antigua and Barbuda.
Ms. Mottley, who enjoys a strong mandate at home with her Barbados Labour Party controlling all 30 seats in the country’s parliament, has made waves internationally by giving voice to such nations’ reservations about how the global financial system treats climate finance.
Ms. Mottley burst onto the scene in 2021 with a passionate speech on the topic during the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, bluntly pointing out that small states were facing climate disasters caused by emissions from industrialized nations.
Left as subtext was the idea that many of these countries built their wealth off the backs of colonial exploitation in places like Barbados, where enslaved people created untold wealth for the British empire by cultivating sugar from the 1600s onward.
As a solution, Ms. Mottley tabled her Bridgetown Initiative, named after the island’s capital city, at the COP27 summit in Egypt the following year.
“There is a reality that developed countries are able to borrow for climate mitigation measures at an interest rate of 1 to 4 percent,” Mr. Grant said in the Global Atlanta interview. “Developing countries are doing that at 14 percent, and we believe that there needs to be significant changes to the Bretton Woods institutions to assist developing countries and allow us to deal with the impact of climate change in a more significant way.”
By COP28 last year, a $661 million fund had been created to help small countries deal with flooding, hurricanes and other impacts from climate change.
This assertiveness from Barbados reflects its growing confidence as newly minted republic. When it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, founding Prime Minister Errol Barrow pledged that Barbados would be a “friend of all, but a satellite of none,” yet the British monarch remained its head of state until a vote in 2021.
Mr. Grant remembered taking an oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II when becoming a senator in the early 2000s. Diplomats sent around the world, he said, had to wait on approval from London. Such arrangements make less sense as Barbados carves out its own relationships in places like Africa, where it has high commissions (embassies) in Kenya and Ghana.
“The institutions that we inherited from the British have served us well. But we believe it’s important for us to create our own identity,” Mr. Grant said.
That doesn’t mean the island is going it alone. Instead, it is using its enhanced global standing to fight for the interests of its neighbors and islands facing similar challenges worldwide, he added.
The African Export-Import Bank, he said, last August opened its office for CARICOM, the bloc of Caribbean nations, in Bridgetown last August, committing $1 billion that will be used for development funding around the region.
“While we have come to the stage of being a republic, we are also at the same time establishing new relationships to ensure that we are able to provide for sustainable development for our island state,” Mr. Grant said.
That includes in the U.S., which Mr. Grant suggested owes its founding to an unlikely encounter in Barbados in the 1750s.
A young George Washington sailed to the island with his half-brother, who was suffering from tuberculosis. While there, Washington caught smallpox, from which he eventually recovered, developing an immunity that experts credit with helping him survive multiple outbreaks among his troops during the Revolutionary War.
“I always say that we have to give recognition to Barbados for the fact that your first president was around to be president because of his visit to Barbados.”
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