Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 80th session on Sept. 26, 2025. Photo: Loey Felipe/UN Photo.
By Isaac Saney – Dec 22, 2025
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s declaration that CARICOM is no longer a reliable partner, coupled with her insistence that Trinidad and Tobago must now “choose our path,” marks a potentially historic rupture in the long and fragile project of Caribbean unity. Coming at a moment of intensifying global instability, renewed U.S. imperial assertiveness, and deepening ecological crisis, her statement raises a stark and unsettling question: are we witnessing the death blow to the dream of a unified Caribbean, or a moment that will force a long-overdue renewal and radical reimagining of that vision?
At one level, Persad-Bissessar’s position reflects real and undeniable pressures. Caribbean states today operate under immense economic, political, diplomatic, and military coercion. Debt, trade dependency, energy insecurity, climate vulnerability, and the constant threat of sanctions or diplomatic isolation create a narrow and punishing policy space. No serious analysis can dismiss these realities. Yet it is one thing to acknowledge pressure; it is quite another to capitulate to it, and still another to align oneself enthusiastically with an imperial project that openly seeks domination.
The danger of Trinidad and Tobago going its own way is not merely the weakening of CARICOM as an institution. It is the broader political signal such a move sends: an acceptance that Caribbean sovereignty is no longer a meaningful goal, that regional unity is expendable, and that the future of the region lies in deeper subordination to Washington. In this sense, Persad-Bissessar’s declaration risks functioning as an ideological surrender—an implicit recognition that the Caribbean is, once again, merely a “U.S. Lake.”
This surrender must be read in the context of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, which is explicit, unapologetic, and deeply menacing in its intentions. The strategy prioritizes the reestablishment and cementing of U.S. domination over what it calls “America’s core foreign policy interests.” Foremost among these interests are “the homeland and the Western Hemisphere,” articulated through what the administration proudly describes as a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
As the strategy unambiguously states:
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere… In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”
This is not diplomacy; it is a declaration of imperial entitlement. Any Caribbean government that orients its foreign policy to align seamlessly with this strategy is not merely being pragmatic—it is participating in an imperial crusade. Such alignment abandons even the pretense of sovereignty and self-determination in exchange for short-term financial relief, political favour, or the aggrandizement of entrenched comprador elites whose interests have long diverged from those of the Caribbean masses.
A turn away from CARICOM extends far beyond diplomatic symbolism. It strikes at the heart of several concrete regional lifelines and fault lines, each of which reveals how dangerous the unravelling of Caribbean unity could be.
What, then, becomes of the broader regional projects that CARICOM—despite all its limitations—has helped to sustain? Take reparations. CARICOM’s reparations initiative has always been constrained by a top-down, state-centric model and a cautious political imagination. Nonetheless, it represented an important regional platform: a collective assertion that Indigenous genocide, the European Transatlantic Slave Trade and enslavement system, and centuries of colonialism and neo-colonialism demand repair. It created space—however imperfect—for building a more democratic, popular, and radical vision of reparatory justice. If CARICOM fragments, what happens to that collective claim? Does the struggle for reparations dissolve into isolated national appeals, easily ignored or crushed by the very powers responsible for the crimes of slavery, indentureship and imperial exploitation?
The same question looms over climate change, perhaps the most existential threat facing the Caribbean. The region is among the most vulnerable in the world to the escalating climate catastrophe, a reality graphically underscored by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Melissa. Entire communities face displacement, economies are repeatedly shattered, and the costs of “recovery” entrench cycles of debt and dependency. Yet the United States—the very power Caribbean leaders are being encouraged to subordinate themselves to—continues to deny, downplay, or actively sabotage global climate action, even as it remains one of the principal historical drivers of ecological destruction.
How does a fragmented Caribbean confront climate collapse? How does a region divided into individual client states negotiate adaptation funding, loss-and-damage compensation, or meaningful mitigation commitments? The answer is painfully obvious: it cannot. Disunity in this context is not merely a political weakness; it is a death sentence.
And what of PetroCaribe? PetroCaribe was never simply an energy arrangement. It was a material expression of regional solidarity, providing concessional oil financing that allowed many Caribbean states fiscal breathing room to fund social programs, infrastructure, and poverty alleviation. While U.S. sanctions and relentless pressure on Venezuela have already gravely weakened PetroCaribe, its partial survival has depended on a minimum level of regional political coherence and resistance.
Imperialist Realism, Functional Sovereignty, and the Structural Encirclement of Venezuela
If leading CARICOM states openly align themselves with Washington’s “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, the space for even limited alternatives like PetroCaribe collapses entirely. Energy policy becomes securitized under U.S. strategic control, locking Caribbean states into volatile global markets and deepening energy poverty. The result is not “energy security,” but dependency—where access to fuel becomes contingent on political obedience. In this sense, the abandonment of CARICOM accelerates the burial of one of the last surviving mechanisms of South-South cooperation in the region.
What Happens to Haiti? Nowhere are the dangers of regional disintegration more catastrophic than in Haiti. CARICOM, despite its failures, has remained one of the few forums where Haiti is not treated exclusively as a security problem or a humanitarian spectacle, but—at least nominally—as a sovereign Caribbean nation.
If CARICOM weakens or fractures, Haiti is left even more exposed to direct U.S., Canadian, and international intervention, framed through the language of “stability,” “governance,” and “security.” This has historically meant occupation by another name, the undermining of Haitian self-determination, and the empowerment of corrupt elites and paramilitary forces. A fragmented Caribbean loses whatever limited capacity it has to advocate for a Haitian-led solution, debt cancellation, reparations for the catastrophic costs of imperialism, and an end to the punitive policies that have systematically destroyed the Haitian economy.
In effect, the collapse of Caribbean unity signals to Washington that Haiti is once again fair game—an open laboratory for imperial social engineering.
Also, what of tourism? Tourism is often presented as the Caribbean’s economic lifeline, but it is also one of its greatest vulnerabilities. The industry is deeply tied to U.S. travel policies, global capital flows, and climate stability. A divided Caribbean competing internally rather than coordinating regionally weakens its bargaining power with multinational hotel chains, cruise corporations, and airlines that extract enormous value while leaving behind low wages, ecological damage, and economic precarity.
Moreover, U.S. securitization of the Caribbean under the “Trump Corollary” threatens to recast the region less as a leisure destination and more as a militarized frontier—policed to prevent migration, control labour, and protect supply chains and energy corridors. Instability, climate disasters, and geopolitical tensions all undermine tourism, yet these are precisely the outcomes produced by imperial domination and environmental denial. Without regional coordination, tourism becomes a race to the bottom, with states offering ever-greater concessions to foreign capital at the expense of workers, communities, and ecosystems.
And, of course, what about China’s investments? China’s growing economic presence in the Caribbean—through infrastructure, loans, and trade—has been one of the central targets of U.S. anxiety. The Trump National Security Strategy is explicit in its intention to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors” access to strategic assets in the Western Hemisphere. This means ports, telecommunications, energy infrastructure, and transportation networks.
A fragmented CARICOM dramatically weakens the region’s ability to negotiate collectively with China—or with the United States. Instead of coordinated engagement that could leverage Chinese investment for regional development while avoiding debt traps, individual states are forced into bilateral negotiations under intense U.S. pressure. The likely outcome is not sovereignty but enforced exclusion: Caribbean governments coerced into rejecting or reversing Chinese projects to satisfy Washington’s strategic demands.
This forecloses development options at a moment when the region desperately needs infrastructure resilient to climate change, diversified trade relationships, and alternatives to Western-dominated financial institutions. Once again, “going it alone” means losing leverage, not gaining it.
To be clear, this is not an uncritical defense of CARICOM as it currently exists. CARICOM has often been slow, elitist, technocratic, and disconnected from popular struggles. It has frequently failed to translate lofty rhetoric into transformative action. But the solution to these failures is not abandonment—it is democratization, radicalization, and renewal from below.
Thus, Persad-Bissessar’s declaration therefore confronts the Caribbean with a crossroads.
One path leads toward deeper integration into U.S. imperial strategy, acceptance of permanent subordination, and the consolidation of power and privilege for a narrow elite.
The tragedy is that some Caribbean elites appear willing—indeed eager—to assist in this process. They mistake proximity to power for power itself, trading long-term sovereignty and collective survival for short-term advantage. But history is unforgiving. The erosion of CARICOM does not lead to national strength; it leads to deeper dependency, heightened vulnerability, and the loss of any meaningful capacity to confront the converging calamities of imperialism, climate collapse, and global inequality.
The other path—far more difficult, but far more necessary—demands recommitting to Caribbean unity as a living, contested, and emancipatory project; one rooted in popular sovereignty, regional solidarity, reparatory justice, and ecological survival.
Will the Caribbean accept fragmentation as its fate, or will this rupture provoke a renewed Pan-Caribbean struggle for a future beyond empire? The dream of One Caribbean has always been fragile and contested. Will it be buried—or reborn in a form capable of meeting the intersecting crises of our time?!
Professor Isaac Saney is a Black Studies and Cuba specialist at Dalhousie University and coordinator of the Black and African Diaspora Studies program. He is the author of, among others, books including Cuba, Africa and Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return!
