Antigua and Barbuda will remain a friend to all and enemy to none, Prime Minister Gaston Browne declared, stressing the country’s right to seek infrastructure funding from China without compromising U.S. relations.

Following high-level discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Prime Minister Browne reiterated that Antigua and Barbuda’s foreign policy is grounded in pragmatism, development needs, and mutual respect.

“Our relationship with China is based on economic development—primarily infrastructure,” Browne said. “We have no military cooperation with China, and we’ve acted solely in our national interest.”

Browne argued that the Caribbean’s development has benefited significantly from Chinese funding over the past three decades, noting that without that support, Antigua and Barbuda would have been “a significantly different place—and for the worse.”

Responding to U.S. apprehensions about geopolitical influence in the region, Browne said such concerns were misplaced. “We are too small to have enemies,” he said. “What we seek is to leverage our foreign policy to serve our people.”

He emphasized that maintaining strong ties with both the United States and China is not contradictory, and urged the world’s two largest economies to de-escalate their trade disputes.

“The kind of muscular rhetoric and heavy tariffs—145% in some cases—hurt developing nations like ours,” Browne warned. “These trade wars have real consequences. They risk reversing the progress we’ve made since COVID.”

The Prime Minister concluded by advocating for greater U.S.-China collaboration, calling it vital for global stability and the resilience of small island states. “We need another ten years of uninterrupted growth to secure our future. A global trade war undermines that.”