Barbados Bartering Agricultural Commodities For Oil

The Venezuelan government will accept sugar from Barbados and bananas from St. Lucian in exchange for oil, which could represent a possible saving of the Barbados sugar industry.

In the PetroCaribe Oil Agreement, Venezuela has pledged “to take our oil reserves and use them to ensure that all of our neighbors are not held hostage by the international capitalist class that is pushing up world oil prices and (thus causing us to) fall victim to the subversion of their economies because of high fuel prices.”

The PetroCaribe agreement had been designed to come to the rescue of countries facing the shock of losing their preferential markets as well as higher international tariffs for their sugar and bananas.