T&T Prime Minister Delivers Blunt Message to CARICOM Leaders

Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, delivered a forceful and politically charged address Tuesday night at the opening of the 50th Regular Meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in St. Kitts and Nevis, sharply defending her country’s sovereignty and security policies while questioning the regional bloc’s reliability.

Persad-Bissessar reaffirmed Trinidad and Tobago’s commitment to CARICOM but made clear that national security would take priority over regional consensus.

“Going forward, we will work with CARICOM… but we cannot bind ourselves to the same political ideologies and security policies of the entire CARICOM,” she said.

She criticized what she described as CARICOM’s silence when Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana faced threats from Venezuela, and revisited a 2022 incident involving the removal of a Trinidadian citizen from another CARICOM state. She said she has yet to receive a response from the CARICOM Secretariat regarding the matter.

Security cooperation with the United States featured prominently in her remarks. Persad-Bissessar thanked U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for military cooperation aimed at combating narcotics and arms trafficking from Venezuela. She credited that partnership with a 42 percent reduction in murders in Trinidad and Tobago in 2025.

“Some of us, the crime is so bad, I cannot depend on just my military,” she said, defending closer U.S. collaboration despite divisions within CARICOM over the presence of foreign forces in the region.

On free movement within CARICOM, she said Trinidad and Tobago remains committed “in principle” but cannot fully implement it at this time due to the strain caused by undocumented migration.

Turning to Cuba, Persad-Bissessar questioned what she called contradictions in regional support for democracy, stating that Trinidad and Tobago would not support “a dictatorship in Cuba or anywhere else.”