How Jamaica prepares for potential geopolitical shifts in multilateral relations and trade in response to COVID-19 is a challenge that will have to be met with robust cooperation, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kamina Johnson Smith has asserted.

Johnson Smith was speaking with The Gleaner on the sidelines of yesterday’s handover of medical equipment and supplies from the European Union (EU) valued at €535,000 (J$80 million) to help bolster the country’s health system and fight the coronavirus.

“But we all agreed that even those tendencies will not divert the world from recognising that a collective response and a collaborative response is key for the world to recover, the fact being that COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease that has affected the world from a health perspective, from an economic perspective, from social-cohesion perspectives, as well as political.”

The EU showed its commitment to multilateralism yesterday by donating a second tranche of medical supplies to the health sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The EU and its member states are committed to supporting the fight against the coronavirus.