Spring Break in a Tax Haven: A Look into the Bahamas
Originally written in March 2022.
I am currently in the outskirts of Freeport, the biggest city on the Grand Bahama Island and the second largest in the Bahamas. Despite being part of one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean, a free trade zone, and tax haven for rich individuals and foreign companies, the island is a bit empty and you can see some devastation after the latest superstorm.
Coincidentally, Prince William and Duchess Kate are touring former British territories and will arrive on the day I leave. There are many articles about groups protesting their stay and demanding they deliver a list of demands to the Queen. A few Caribbean countries are already declaring they are renouncing the Queen as their Head of State.
As I experience day after day in this breathtaking paradise, I have so many thoughts in my mind. All I have learned over the past eight weeks in my “Globalization Spaces” class is culminating into a mix of emotions — gratitude, calmness, guilt, frustration, hope, and joy.
As I descended into Freeport earlier this week, I spotted many empty cruise ships lined up a few miles from shore. If they dared return to the US, they would be seized because their owners owed billions of COVID-era dollars to passengers and the government. Later that week, when I went snorkeling, I observed there were oil rigs “in storage” also a few miles from shore; their owners similarly paid The Bahamas for the ocean space. A bit inland, there were endless rows of shipping containers and signs warning to watch for signs of human trafficking. Outside these highly monitored areas, there was a sign explaining that Hutchison Ports LLC (a multinational corporation based in Hong Kong) owned the area. On a tour of the Lucayan National Park where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed, I chatted with the guide and he made me guess which country was most involved with the island’s trade patterns — China. He was pleased I came on the trip having read so much about free trade zones and Bahamian history, but found it absurd how oblivious Americans are about the Asian companies doing business right in our front yard.
As I drove through the island, I noticed the forests were littered with cracked tree stumps and grey shrubbery drowned by 30 foot saltwater waves in a 2019 hurricane.
Amidst deserted office buildings and rows of abandoned, towering hotels, there was a brightly lit Wendy’s fast food restaurant. I was surprised when one of the nicer looking homes, rather inconspicuously, advertised itself as Deloitte’s Freeport branch. They were hired to review the efficiency of bringing back electricity to residents who lost it during the intense hurricanes in the past few years.
I was used to seeing such consultancies in skyscrapers, not homes destined for families.
As I continued driving down the left side of the road (people drive down the opposite sides of the road here), I witnessed many, many gambling parlors, boarded up homes with rusting cars in the yards, and endless ads for BTC, Avil, and fiber optic network connections. Curiously, there were even Avil representatives present at the local fish fry. They never missed an opportunity to advertise.
While chatting to one of the taxi drivers at the fry, I learned more about Bahamian independence, the struggle to bring back tourists, and the huge importance of religion in the Constitution. He also explained how the country’s involvement with the World Bank and other global financial institutions meant a lot of foreigners dictated how The Bahamas should be run; he said if locals had it their way, things would be much better, and gave an example of people getting educated abroad and then coming back and investing their capital in local areas. When I brought up the tax haven aspect of the island, he said it is getting more strictly regulated now — we discussed how this is driving people away, similarly to what happened in Jersey off the French coast after 2008. He noted that many Russian assets were also being seized. We ended by walking by a church worth millions of dollars due to the fact that it was a beachfront property; the community refused to sell it to the government. I sincerely hope to see it still standing proudly the next time I visit.
I am eager to keep exploring, even if it is sometimes difficult to translate observations into immediate predictions about where the country is heading.
