Kamla Persad-Bissessar Turns on CARICOM as Trinidad Chooses Washington’s Warships Over Regional Peace
Jamaica Live Regional News – | Oct 28, 2025
A Controversial and Divisive Break in Caribbean Unity
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has chosen to gaslight CARICOM after she aligned her country with a United States military build-up many fear could bring destruction and war into the Caribbean Sea. Kamla Persad-Bissessar has accused the Caribbean Community of siding with Venezuela over Trinidad and Tobago, publicly branding the regional bloc as an “unreliable partner” that “chose Venezuela over Trinidad.”
Her comments followed Port-of-Spain’s shocking refusal to support CARICOM’s joint declaration that reaffirmed the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace,” leaving Trinidad and Tobago isolated as the only government that broke ranks.
Welcoming U.S. Warships While Rejecting Regional Consensus
The policy shift comes as the United States deploys naval assets to the southern Caribbean Sea, including the USS Gravely, which docked in Trinidad recently as part of Washington’s increased military operations targeting Venezuela.
While CARICOM strongly advocates de-escalation and diplomacy, Persad-Bissessar insists that T&T must adopt a more militarised stance due to rampant gang violence, guns, human trafficking and over 600 murders a year. In her words, “there is no zone of peace in Trinidad and Tobago.”
Yet critics argue that her rhetoric seeks to paint her neighbours as naïve pacifists while presenting T&T as a frontline state in a war no one else has signed up for.
Economic Retaliation From Venezuela Already Underway
The consequences of T&T’s realignment have arrived quickly. Venezuela has suspended key energy agreements and gas projects with Port-of-Spain, citing the US naval visit as an unacceptable provocation.
This jeopardises billions in potential energy revenue, raising serious questions about whether the government fully considered the economic costs of joining Washington’s security posture.
Undermining CARICOM’s Diplomatic Architecture
Ten former regional heads of government, including Trinidad and Tobago’s own Dr Keith Rowley, signed a joint statement reaffirming that the Caribbean must remain a peaceful zone free from major-power confrontation. Persad-Bissessar’s response was simply to dismiss concerns as “fearmongering and hysteria,” telling citizens to “please be calm.”
Such dismissal has triggered anxieties across the region that T&T is inviting foreign military entanglement and destabilising decades of shared diplomacy.
A Strategic Pawn in a Foreign Power Struggle?
Persad-Bissessar insists that Trinidad and Tobago is not becoming a launchpad for interventions against Venezuela. However, sovereignty is not defined by promises but by control over national posture, and right now, the optics place T&T unmistakably within America’s geopolitical strategy.
Observers warn that if tensions continue to rise between Washington and Caracas, Trinidad and Tobago could become ground zero in a conflict the Caribbean has repeatedly rejected.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar has made a defining strategic choice:
Caribbean solidarity, diplomacy, and peace on one side…
United States military muscle on the other.
She has chosen Washington’s warships.
She has chosen confrontation.
She has chosen to publicly attack CARICOM in the process.
Whether this is courageous realism or reckless provocation will soon be determined by the forces now gathering in Caribbean waters.
One fact is already clear:
This is the most serious fracture in CARICOM’s unity in years and the entire region may feel the consequences.