by Colin Hyde
There are Americans of sound mind who praise the contributions that foreign-born people in the USA make to their economy; but watching/listening to the news out of that country, if you had just dropped from a spaceship to earth you’d think that foreigners are milking them dry. Florida discussed a plan to block individuals who are illegally in the US, from sending money to their home countries, and the US has cut off aid to foreign countries and passed a 1% tax on remittances. It’s supposed to be because the US trade deficit is large. If you want to know why that’s so, it’s because everybody there – ma, pa, daughters, and sons – must have everything.
It is basic that all countries must control immigration. People leave their countries for various reasons. On the extreme, there are Belizeans who don’t like Belize, and there are Americans who don’t like the US. It happens, it’s natural. It’s natural too, to be suspicious about new people in your neighborhood, to be suspicious about anything or anyone new. It’s natural, and we can handle it if there is no hysteria.
Belizeans in the US send money to their folk back home. Americans remit funds too. Those American leaders, some things they haven’t thought through. Thousands of Americans are doing business in Belize, and the money they earn, much of it doesn’t stay here.
Per capita there are more Americans here than there are Belizeans over there. Looking at some facts (as best we can) about us and them, we can refer to the US State Department figures, presented by an AI Overview tool, which indicate that “approximately 160,000 Belizeans live in the United States.” The US population is 340 million, so we make up 0.047% of the population over there. Continuing with the AI tool, the US State Department is quoted as saying that “approximately 30,000 Americans reside in Belize”, that total including “both those who have retired and those who have relocated for other reasons.” Based on a population of 420,000 Belizeans, that means over 6.5% of our space, 138 times what we occupy in the US, is occupied by Americans.
The AI Overview also indicates that “in 2023, Belize received approximately $149.57 million USD in personal remittances, primarily from the United States”, and the “remittances from the US are a significant source of foreign exchange for Belize, contributing to the country’s economy.”
Looking at some interesting facts about the two economies, borrowing from AI Overview again, we find that the US is our largest trading partner, that we “imported goods worth approximately US$ 573 million from the United States” in 2022, and in 2023 imports from the US reached US$ 633 million.
Trading Economics said, “United States Imports from Belize was US$ 86.37 million during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.”
Returning to AI Overview, we find a statement that “the Belizean Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry spends approximately $150 million annually on salaries. This significant expenditure is a major driver of the Belizean economy, with over 16,000 Belizeans employed in the BPO sector.” It says “tourism is a major economic driver” of our economy, “with the industry’s revenue projected to reach $1.4 billion USD in 2024. This represents a significant portion of the country’s GDP, with estimates suggesting tourism contributes 40% to 45% annually, including direct, indirect, and induced effects.”
Many Americans here have businesses, and we know they are big in tourism. We don’t know how much they remit to their home turf, and we won’t find that on AI or from our Central Bank. But we know the sum there is nothing pilinki. Belize collects taxes from hotels, and foreign investors employ Belizeans to develop their properties and serve as chefs, waiters, and tour guides. Much of the food served to the guests is grown in Belize, and tourists buy souvenirs from small entrepreneurs.
Ah, the building materials, electronics, beds, linens, cutlery, boat engines, vehicles, whiskey, air conditioners, and multiple other items needed and used in the industry are imported, mainly from the USA. A substantial part, the bigger “half” of the outlay a visitor makes to vacation in Belize, doesn’t reach our shores. Visitors travel to Belize on planes and ships owned by Americans. They stay at hotels, and all of the big ones are owned by Americans and European friends. According to an AI Overview estimate, “a healthy profit margin for a hotel is generally considered to be around 10%”, and the “luxury hotels can achieve profit margins of 25-35%.” The profits, the fat profits end up in US banks or in tax havens.
No wager, it’s a given that what US citizens remit is no chump change; in fact, quite likely it dwarfs what Belizean citizens in the US send back home. The US is doing quite well in Belize, Braa. They don’t have to act like we di leech them.
Winston Churchill, the sins and the sinner
Conscious, “woke” people want people of color to know about the horrors done by Winston Churchill. They say he was a racist. I ask, which white man wasn’t, Braa? Churchill was brought up on the same propaganda, lies that we were brought up on — a world dominated by the white barbarian military, where the white people are natively superior to people of color, a world that was full of schemes to make people of color feel inferior.
Churchill was responsible, blamed for the Great Indian Famine, the starving to death of 3 million people of color during WWII. Kishan S. Rana, in a promotion of his/her book, Churchill and India: Manipulation or Betrayal?, said the famine “originated with blocked Burmese rice supplies, poor rains, destruction of rice stocks in East India in early 1942 by the British Army (fearing a Japanese invasion), and hoarding of food grains by Indian traders – all compounded by the incompetence of British India officials.”
They look down on us, we who don’t have the bomb, but we are not the only victims of their savagery. These “civilized” white men are brutal with each other over the division of the world’s resources. Both WWI and WWII were wars that pitted white men against white men. And the white men who won raped as many white women as they have colored ones.
They have their tier system, grades of white. Hitler, it’s confusing to understand why he saw the blond, blue-eyed male as the ideal when he didn’t make that “grade”. It’s possible his mind was warped by the portrait more ancient Europeans had created of the Christ — a blond, blue-eyed male whose skin had been robbed of its melanin. The whites, they took stealing to some depths. Talk about stealing sugar out of bun: they drained Jesus of His color.
Ah, separating the sins from the sinner, if you are energized by sound bites, ain’t no one to compare to Mr. Churchill. According to Brainy Quote, in a dark hour in Mother England during WWII, Churchill stood up in the House of Commons and said the immortal lines: We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Churchill’s party got booted from office in 1945, so he wasn’t around for the partitioning of India, but the Times of India said he was in favor of the country’s dismantling. Churchill was known as a hater of Hindus. Rana said that in his early adult years, Churchill was sent to the frontline “with an Indian regiment composed of Muslim soldiers” at a time when British regiments in India were strictly segregated. Rana said this exposure produced “lifelong empathy for Muslims”, which later “morphed into political support for Jinnah [future leader of the breakaway state, Pakistan] and his Muslim League.”
Rana said, “With the end of WWII in sight, Churchill refused to consider an orderly transfer of power. And throughout, Jinnah and his Muslim League were patronized, built up to create a new state as a future strategic ally to block Soviet access to the Arabian Sea and safeguard oil supplies.”