As U.S.-Venezuela tensions rise, Trinidad & Tobago thumbs its nose at CARICOM

This story by Flora Thomas originally appeared on Global Voices on December 23, 2025.

Regional news headlines on the morning of December 21, 2025, all highlighted the same thing: Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s dressing down of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) while emphasising her support of the United States’ right to “advance their best interests” by partially suspending entry under certain visa categories.

The move affects Caribbean territories, including Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda, which offer Citizenship by Investment programmes.

In her statement, Persad-Bissessar called CARICOM an unreliable partner, adding that “there are many widening fissures that if left unaddressed will lead to its implosion.” She accused the regional bloc of everything from “poor management [and] lax accountability” to “false narratives” and “inappropriate meddling [in] domestic politics,” and noted that while CARICOM member states were “free to make decisions in the best interests of their citizens,” she will “always make decisions that put Trinidad and Tobago first.”

Cries of anti-CARICOM

The criticism around the prime minister’s posturing has been earning her criticism since September, when the U.S. began to assert its military presence in the region via a series of air strikes, the first of which killed 11 people. At that time, the U.S.’ official rationale was the demobilisation of “narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”

Persad-Bissessar made international headlines for her support of the action, saying, “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the U.S. military should kill them all violently.” As the strikes continued, killing more people — including Trinidad and Tobago nationals — academic Richard Drayton called Persad-Bissessar’s stance “not merely pro-US, or anti-Maduro, it is also let us be clear, defiantly, even rudely, anti-Caricom.”

Two months later, as U.S. rhetoric — and action — appear increasingly focused on Venezuela’s oil resources, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne responded to his Trinidad and Tobago counterpart’s statement. “Assertions that CARICOM is an unreliable partner to Trinidad and Tobago are difficult to reconcile with the economic record,” he said, adding that the regional community’s reliability has extended to supporting the twin-island nation in its struggle against organised crime.

See Also: 63% of US Voters Oppose Attack on Venezuela as Trump’s March to War Accelerates

Emphasising that CARICOM “is a partnership rooted in shared history, shared bloodlines, shared struggle for independence, and a shared determination that small states are stronger when they act together,” Browne maintained that “respectful dialogue with international partners is not subservience, nor is regional consultation disloyalty. Antigua and Barbuda will continue to engage the United States responsibly and transparently in full cooperation, while remaining fully committed to CARICOM and to the dignity, sovereignty, and mutual respect that define Caribbean integration.”

Browne later negotiated with the United States over the partial visa restrictions and successfully reached an agreement under which Antigua and Barbuda nationals who currently hold U.S. visas will be allowed entry.

Current Antiguan and Barbudan Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, in an op-ed for CNG Media, posited that “recent events have exposed, with painful clarity, how thin the shield of individual sovereignty becomes when the pressure of great-power politics mounts.” He recalled that in October, when CARICOM heads of government reaffirmed the region’s desire to remain a zone of peace, “within days CARICOM’s supposed unity became a patchwork of national interests […] This fragmentation should alarm all CARICOM peoples.”

In making a case for a unified regional position, Sanders warned that “sovereignty must be asserted individually but exercised collectively. That is the heart of the Caribbean project and its most persistent challenge.” On X, however, Persad-Bissessar responded that “Gaston and Ronald Sanders should worry less about my comments and spend more time explaining to their citizens as to why their visas were restricted.” Many comments on her Facebook post expressed support for her position.

Caught in the crosshairs

The Trinbagonian prime minister has always maintained that the U.S. will defend Trinidad and Tobago in the event of a crisis. She also called on Trinidad and Tobago nationals who hold U.S. visas yet badmouth the United States to “behave yourselves” and be wary of ending up under visa restrictions similar to those of Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica.

On Facebook, creator Abeo Jackson responded, “If the only vision of ‘Trinidad and Tobago first’ being offered is one that requires silence, obedience and fear of losing visas, favour and protection, then that vision is bankrupt. Please, disrespectfully, KEEP IT! […] We are not children to be spoken down to and we are not a colony waiting to be managed. […] Bout behave.”

See Also: Trinidad’s Border Communities Face Rising Citizen Security Risks Amid U.S.-Venezuela Tensions

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago is in an awkward position, unsurprisingly on the receiving end of Venezuela’s ire, and alienating CARICOM to the point where local journalist Kejan Haynes quipped, “ExiTT…? […] The British were offered a referendum at least.”

Columnist Sunity Maharaj, writing in the Trinidad and Tobago Express, observed that mere days before Christmas, “Donald Trump finds himself trapped between the immovable force that is Nicolás Maduro and the unthinkable option of retreat […] Every inch taken towards an outcome of war heightens the risk for Trinidad and Tobago.”

Nothing that at least the U.S. Congress has been trying to hold the government to account over its actions in the southern Caribbean, “by contrast, the people and Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago have had no access to detailed information or opportunity to hold any public official to account. Neither people nor Parliament has been supplied with the information for determining whether the activities of the US military in this country are lawful and within the agreed framework of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The only thing we know is that we don’t know.”

SOFA treaties set out the rules for how U.S. military and defence personnel can operate in a host country and the rights and responsibilities they have while there. The U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago have had a SOFA agreement in place since 2007; a 2013 version was signed while Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s then People’s Partnership government was in office, and it was extended by a diplomatic note on December 19, 2022. An amended version of that agreement came into force on January 1, 2025, under the hand of the People's National Movement, which is now in opposition. A U.S. Embassy release at the time explained, “The SOFA is an agreement which allows for military-to-military engagement […] The new SOFA will bring the agreement in line with US and TT laws and will have no expiration date unless renegotiated.”

While SOFA allows the deployment of U.S. troops on Trinidad and Tobago soil, it still requires state permission; either country can also negotiate to withdraw from the agreement at any time. Guyana, which has been embroiled in a border dispute with Venezuela and in which CARICOM has firmly defended Guyana’s sovereign rights, also has a SOFA with the U.S.

Role of the opposition

“In the face of what may lie ahead,” Maharaj called “the silence from professional bodies and institutional interests […] shocking to the point of negligence.” If Trinidad and Tobago’s government is unwilling or unable to offer information to citizens, she argued, “then the Opposition People’s National Movement, whose government signed the SOFA under which T&T has now been co-opted in the US war on Venezuela, must break its silence […] In this matter, the responsibility to account falls on both Government and Opposition.”

Thus far, finger-pointing has been in heavy play, with former prime minister Keith Rowley denouncing Persad-Bissessar and her administration in a Facebook post that offered no further insight into the Status of Forces Agreement. Meanwhile, in a December 22 Facebook post, Leader of the Opposition Penelope Beckles suggested that “Citizens should not have to go on a hunt for information that rightfully belongs to them, especially when the issue touches national security and sovereignty.” She added that “our nation cannot consider itself well represented by a Prime Minister who demonstrates public disdain for international law, for the UN Charter, as well as such flagrant disregard for the concerns and questions of the population.” There has been much discussion over whether the U.S. military strikes have been in contravention of the UN Charter and broader international law.

Meanwhile, rumours continue to fly about the possibility of a more organised military setup close to the U.S.-installed radar at the airport in Tobago.

(SY)

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