T&T must tread carefully in shifting US-Caribbean landscape

Former politician and academic Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie believes Trinidad and Tobago’s closer alignment with the United States under the emerging ‘Shield of the Americas’ framework is rooted in hard-headed calculation, but warned that it could deepen divisions within CARICOM [Caribbean Community] and leave the country needing to pivot again if geopolitical winds change.

Speaking on Altos, Tewarie said the Monroe Doctrine, first articulated by US President James Monroe more than two centuries ago, has returned in a sharper and more assertive form under President Donald Trump. In his view, Washington is seeking to reassert control over the Western Hemisphere, treating it as a strategic sphere of influence stretching “from Greenland all the way to Tierra del Fuego”.

He described this as “a Trump version of the Monroe Doctrine”, one that is “much more focused on keeping everybody out of the Western Hemisphere and basically keeping this domain as a USA or American domain”.

Tewarie suggested Trinidad and Tobago’s participation is not simply ideological but driven by national self-interest, especially around energy. He argued that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar appears to have calculated that access to Venezuelan gas now depends less on Caracas and more on Washington.

“I think the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has calculated that Venezuelan gas, given that kind of doctrine, really depends on the United States more than anybody else,” he said. For that reason, he added, “she’s kind of tied her canoe to the US harbour under this Trump administration”.

Tewarie said the country’s involvement also places it within a wider US-led security arrangement involving about a dozen states across Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

In his reading, the alliance is presented as mutually beneficial: it helps secure US interests while also offering smaller participating states stronger protection against threats such as organised crime and border instability.

He said this could translate into practical benefits for Trinidad and Tobago, including stronger support for the military, police and wider law-enforcement apparatus as the country battles crime and transnational criminal networks. He noted the US concern that weak states with weak border control can be overwhelmed by gangs, illicit finance, and organised violence, pointing to places such as Haiti as cautionary examples.

Risk to CARICOM unity

At the same time, Tewarie acknowledged that Trinidad and Tobago’s stance may come at a regional cost. Asked whether the country was risking both CARICOM unity and its own sovereignty by taking such a strong position, he said plainly: “I think it does create a fissure within CARICOM for Trinidad and Tobago to take some such a strong position.”

Still, he argued that the issue is bigger than security alone. Energy security, he said, is now central to global power politics, especially with conflict involving Iran adding further pressure to already tense markets. He pointed to the growing strategic importance of this part of the world: Suriname with oil and gas prospects, Guyana with oil and later gas, Venezuela with its vast reserves, and Trinidad and Tobago with refining and gas-processing capacity, including its LNG infrastructure.

For Tewarie, that concentration of energy assets makes the southern Caribbean and northern South America an increasingly critical zone, not just for Washington but for regional states themselves.

Between Washington and Beijing

Yet he also recognised the contradictions in Trinidad and Tobago’s foreign policy posture. Asked how the country could speak of protecting the Caribbean from China while also signing an agreement with Beijing to explore oilfields, Tewarie conceded the situation was not easy to explain.

“I don’t know if you can really understand it rationally,” he said. Rather, he framed it as a balancing act: Trinidad and Tobago is trying to secure its interests with the United States while also understanding “that it cannot put all its eggs in one basket with the United States”.

He added that current energy arrangements are not fixed and may shift again, especially with possible regional developments involving Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Guyana. He also pointed to the wider basin of Venezuelan oil and gas as a potential game-changer for this country if access arrangements evolve.

Although oil sits at the centre of current debate, Tewarie insisted the struggle is broader. He argued that US interest in the hemisphere includes not only hydrocarbons but also lithium, other strategic minerals, and control over supply chains needed for artificial intelligence and space revolutions.

“It is not only about energy,” he said, though he stressed that energy has become “more important in the world than it has ever been” because it is essential to powering AI-driven development.

That, he said, raises a further challenge for small states. Only a handful of countries will have the resources to become fully AI-driven economies, while many others risk being left behind.

Trinidad and Tobago and the wider CARICOM region therefore need to position themselves carefully so that they benefit from new technologies rather than merely consume them.

Tewarie said the region must ensure it has “some measure of control and input into the way the technology is applied here in Trinidad and Tobago and indeed the region”. Otherwise, small island states could be among those most easily bypassed in the next global economic transformation.

Need for flexibility

On the question of whether a possible Democratic resurgence in the US midterm elections could upend the current arrangement, Tewarie was cautious. He does not expect any major reversal in the broad direction of US policy, even if there is a shift in tone after Trump.

“I don’t think significantly it will,” he said, arguing that Washington will still want to maintain strong partnerships it has already built.

Even so, he warned that Trinidad and Tobago should not assume the present moment will last forever. “We may have to pivot again. We may have to adapt,” he said, adding that the country must do “what is best for our country”.

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