page_title: Foreign relations of Barbados
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Foreign relations of Barbados / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Bridgetown (Barbados), 18 de marzo de 2013. El Canciller Ricardo Patiño continúa su gira por el Caribe. En su visita a Barbados, se reunió con su homóloga de este país, Maxine McClean. Foto: Fernanda LeMarie - Cancillería del Ecuador.
context_page_description: At the political level, these matters are officially handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which answers to the Prime Minister. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, since May 2018 is: Senator The Hon. Jerome X. Walcott.
  Barbados is a moderate political and economic power in the Caribbean region.
  Between independence in 1966 and the 1990s, Barbados has used a pro business and investment policy to expand its influence in the world. Through the usage of its network of international bilateral relations, the country has been able to maintain an independent foreign policy. Barbados' recent policy has been to focus and strengthen ties with nations that country feels will enhance its diplomacy or foreign trade. Barbados has sought to engage in multilateral diplomacy through the United Nations, the Caribbean Community, the Association of Caribbean States, the group of ACP countries, the Organization of American States, and several other agencies which it is engaged. In 2008 Barbados and the other members of CARICOM signed an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union and its European Commission. The deal covers CARICOM's membership in the Caribbean Forum.
context_section_description: In 1965, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago established the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA).  Following independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, Barbados went on to become a founding member of many other international organizations.
  On 4 July 1973, the founding nations of Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Jamaica signed the original Treaty of Chaguaramas in Trinidad thus establishing the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). The agreement to establish CARICOM wound up succeeded the CARIFTA organisation. By the following year many of the remaining English-speaking Caribbean states followed suit and also joined CARICOM by May 1974, bring it slowly to the 15 members it has today.
  Barbados also is a member of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), established in 1970, with headquarters in Wildey, Saint Michael (Bridgetown). The eastern Caribbean's Regional Security System (RSS), which associates Barbados with six nations of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is also based in Barbados. In July 1994, Barbados joined the newly established Association of Caribbean States (ACS).
  In 2002 the United Nations opened a building in the Marine Gardens area of Hastings found in the Parish of Christ Church the facility simply called the United Nations House acts as a regional operations headquarters for several programmes of the United Nations in Barbados and for many of the other islands in the Eastern Caribbean region.
caption: Maxine McClean is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Barbados
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