The NDP once proposed abandoning Taiwan for mainland China. Today, Prime Minister Godwin Friday is strengthening the very relationship at the center of Gonsalves’ 2023 warning.
Ralph Gonsalves’ 2023 warning that Taiwan’s loans put a “hook in the gill” has resurfaced in political debate, with some New Democratic Party (NDP) supporters presenting it as proof that the former Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration knowingly left St. Vincent and the Grenadines in a disastrous financial position.
The original reporting, Gonsalves’ own clarification, and the conduct of Prime Minister Godwin Friday’s government tell a more complicated story.
Three and a half years later, the phrase is still repeated, usually without the circumstances that produced it. The real question is whether Gonsalves was admitting that Taiwan had financially trapped SVG, or warning the NDP that its proposed foreign policy carried a heavy price. The distinction is fundamental.
What Gonsalves said about the “hook in the gill”
On April 11, 2023, iWitness News published “$577m in loans from Taiwan ‘put a hook in the gill,’ PM says.” Gonsalves made the remarks at the April 5 signing of an EC$120 million loan from Taipei.
The context was the NDP’s 2016 announcement, under then-leader Arnhim Eustace, that it would sever ties with Taiwan and recognize the People’s Republic of China if elected. The party had not formally renounced that position in April 2023.
Gonsalves said the Taiwanese loan agreements contained default clauses under which all outstanding loans could be called in immediately if SVG ended diplomatic relations. That was his reading of the contracts, and it was never tested in court.
Still, the question was serious: if a future government switched recognition to Beijing, could the lender demand repayment years ahead of schedule? That is the problem Gonsalves was pointing at when he reached for his fishing metaphor.
The “hook in the gill” clarification that is often overlooked
On April 21, 2023, iWitness News reported “Taiwan’s loan ‘hook’ in NDP’s ‘gill’, not SVG’s.” At a press conference the day before, Gonsalves said the hook was in the gill of the NDP and its plan to switch to China, not in the gill of the country.
He argued that SVG was receiving long-term development financing from a longstanding partner, and that a party proposing to end that relationship would have to face the contractual consequences.
That clarification does not erase the debt. Taiwanese loans are sovereign obligations of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, not of the ULP or the NDP. Nor did everyone accept the distinction: a Searchlight editorial the same day argued that a hook in the gill of an NDP government is a hook in the gill of SVG.
That is a fair argument. But an analysis that cites the April 11 headline while ignoring the April 21 clarification gives readers an incomplete account.
What did the EC$577.9 million represent?
iWitness News reported that SVG’s obligations to Taiwan stood at about EC$577.9 million in April 2023, up from roughly EC$100 million the previous September. Much of the increase was newly contracted financing for development projects.
There is an important difference between contracted financing and money already disbursed. A loan agreement can authorize funds over several years before they are drawn down. Gonsalves himself told Searchlight that some of the contracted loans had been partly disbursed, not fully.
So the EC$577.9 million figure, the number behind the “hook in the gill” headline, should not be read as debt already drawn and outstanding at the time, nor as money already spent. The questions that matter are what the loans financed, when the money arrived, on what terms, and what the projects delivered.
The NDP was not uniformly opposed either. During the April 2023 debate, NDP chairman Daniel Cummings welcomed the funding from Taiwan, and Gonsalves maintained that the party had never voted against a Taiwanese loan.
The NDP’s position in April 2023
The warning was not aimed at an imaginary policy. As iWitness News reported at the time, Friday had kept the One China policy since becoming party leader in 2017, though senior figures including St. Clair Leacock and Cummings had publicly suggested the NDP might reconsider it.
Leacock pushed back hard, questioning the “genius” of signing loans that could constrain a future government’s diplomatic choices. That concern deserves examination. But a possible contractual restriction is not the same as proof that the whole borrowing relationship was disastrous.
Gonsalves kept the “hook in the gill” alive
Gonsalves did not retire the phrase after his clarification. A Searchlight editorial in January 2026 noted that he repeated the taunt after another Taiwanese loan signing in 2024 and kept the China question at the center of the 2025 campaign.
And in October 2025, according to a column by former House Speaker Jomo Sanga Thomas, Gonsalves told a Taiwan National Day gathering that the hook was now about EC$800 million. Critics argue that the growing figure itself undermines the claim that the hook belonged only to the NDP.
Why the warning was not empty
The Caribbean has a precedent. After Grenada switched recognition from Taiwan to Beijing in 2005, Taiwan’s lenders pursued it through US courts over defaulted loans and sought to seize Grenadian revenue streams, as recounted in a recent South China Morning Post opinion piece.
Whatever one thinks of Gonsalves’ motives, the risk behind the “hook in the gill” was real for any government contemplating a switch.
The political landscape changed in 2025
The NDP won the November 27, 2025 general election, ending more than 24 years of ULP government. Friday took office the next day, and the party inherited the foreign policy choice at the heart of the “hook in the gill” debate.
The new government did not abandon Taiwan. In January 2026, The Vincentian reported Friday saying that relations with Taiwan remained and that Vincentian students there would not be affected. Taiwan’s foreign ministry publicly welcomed the pledge.
In March 2026, Leacock himself, now Deputy Prime Minister, led a delegation to Taipei and met President Lai Ching-te to mark the 45th anniversary of relations.
Friday goes to Taiwan
On August 11, 2026, Prime Minister Friday was welcomed with full military honors in Taipei and held talks with President Lai. According to Taiwan’s Presidential Office, Friday expressed sincere gratitude for Taiwan’s generosity over the years. At a reception the next day, he spoke of expanding business ties between the two countries.
That is a long way from the switch the NDP announced in 2016. It does not prove the loan provisions forced Friday’s hand; no such causal conclusion can be drawn from the evidence. Continuity may reflect national interest, development cooperation, scholarships and political judgment. But the rupture behind the “hook in the gill” warning has not happened.
Beyond the “hook in the gill”: the debt question remains
On August 18, 2026, iWitness News reported that Friday’s government is in “very serious” talks with Taiwan about easing SVG’s debt. Friday described a Taiwanese loan portfolio of about US$345 million, said much of it had already been drawn down, and warned that the debt-to-GDP ratio could climb above the current 113% without corrective action.
That confirms the Taiwanese debt is a live problem for the present government, and that Friday is seeking relief through engagement with Taipei rather than a break. That is a legitimate choice. It does not absolve the former administration of its borrowing decisions, and it does not excuse the present one from producing a credible debt strategy. Deputy Prime Minister Leacock has himself described a government under severe cash-flow strain, and Moody’s has cut SVG’s credit rating to Caa1.
Borrowing must be judged by more than political headlines
SVG’s debt challenge is serious, and it should be neither denied nor explained away through party loyalty. The Gonsalves administration must answer for the debt it contracted, the terms it negotiated and the results it achieved. The Friday administration must explain how it will manage those obligations, fund public services and pursue growth without new unsustainable burdens. Vincypowa News has already questioned the NDP government’s own borrowing after a campaign built on debt.
The useful questions are concrete. Was the financing concessional? What were the interest rates and repayment periods? Which projects were completed, and what did Vincentians gain? How much had been disbursed at each reporting date? And what would the contracts actually have required if SVG had switched to Beijing?
Repeating an isolated phrase from 2023 answers none of them.
Why context matters for the “hook in the gill”
The NDP proposed switching recognition to mainland China. Gonsalves warned that the loan agreements could make that switch expensive, clarified that the hook was aimed at the NDP’s policy, and then kept using the line as a campaign weapon. In government, the NDP preserved relations with Taiwan, Friday visited Taipei, and his administration is now negotiating over the debt.
There is room for legitimate criticism of Gonsalves’ borrowing record, and room to question whether loan contracts should ever constrain a sovereign country’s diplomacy. Neither justifies stripping a political statement from the circumstances in which it was made.
The central issue was never simply that Taiwan lent SVG hundreds of millions of dollars. It was whether a party proposing to abandon Taiwan understood what that would cost. The phrase “hook in the gill” will keep circulating, but an honest account needs the clarification, the loan figures, the NDP’s former policy and the record of the government now in office.
That is the fuller story Vincentians deserve.
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