In December 2025, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar broke ranks with every other CARICOM head of government. The issue was the United States' partial suspension of visa categories targeting Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda over their Citizenship by Investment programmes. CARICOM's Bureau issued a collective statement opposing the restrictions. Persad-Bissessar publicly distanced Trinidad and Tobago from it, declaring that her government "recognises the sovereign right of the United States to make decisions in furtherance of its best interests."
That alone would have been remarkable. But she went further, calling CARICOM "not a reliable partner at this time" and warning that "beneath the thin mask of unity, there are many widening fissures that if left unaddressed will lead to its implosion."
Three months later, speaking in Parliament in March 2026, Persad-Bissessar escalated further. She told lawmakers that "CARICOM has been failing for 52 years and will continue to fail for the next 52 years." She announced that Trinidad and Tobago would reduce its annual financial contribution - currently approximately US$4 to 5 million, representing roughly 22 percent of the organisation's budget. And she revealed that Trinidad and Tobago had applied for associate membership in Mercosur, the South American trade bloc anchored by Brazil and Argentina.
In the same period, Foreign Minister Sean Sobers told Parliament that the reappointment of CARICOM Secretary-General Dr. Carla Barnett had been conducted through a "surreptitious" process. He alleged that Trinidad and Tobago, along with Antigua and Barbuda and The Bahamas, had been excluded from a retreat of heads of government held in Nevis on February 26, 2026, where the reappointment was discussed. Trinidad and Tobago formally placed on record its opposition to Barnett's renewal.
The rhetoric drew responses. St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves called the Trinidad and Tobago dollar "monopoly money." Persad-Bissessar, meanwhile, posted remarks on X describing murder victims as "young afro adults" in "PNM strongholds" - language that drew accusations of racializing crime data for political ends.
These are not diplomatic nuances. A founding CARICOM member state - one of its largest economies and its single biggest funder - is publicly questioning the organisation's reason for existence while pivoting toward a different regional alignment. This is, by any measure, a significant shift in Caribbean geopolitics.
The domestic debate about what it means has been almost nonexistent.
The Venezuela Factor
To understand why the rift runs deeper than budget grievances, you have to go back to October 2025. Venezuela's National Assembly voted to declare Persad-Bissessar persona non grata after she welcomed the build-up of US military forces in the Caribbean and supported Washington's bombing campaign against alleged drug-trafficking boats. Caracas also suspended a major gas deal with Trinidad and Tobago in retaliation for the country's hosting of a US warship. The Dragon gas field arrangement, which Trinidad and Tobago had been counting on to reverse declining natural gas production, was thrown into uncertainty.
CARICOM's response, in Persad-Bissessar's view, was inadequate. Foreign Minister Sobers told Parliament that CARICOM had been "silent on Venezuelan aggression" against Trinidad and Tobago. The Prime Minister argued that an organisation willing to defend the Maduro government - several CARICOM states had maintained engagement with Caracas - while failing to stand behind a member state facing direct threats had forfeited its credibility.
This framing placed Trinidad and Tobago's grievance with CARICOM squarely within its alignment with Washington at a time when other Caribbean governments were pursuing a more neutral posture. Global Voices described the dynamic bluntly: as US-Venezuela tensions rose, Trinidad and Tobago was thumbing its nose at CARICOM.
Whether Persad-Bissessar's alignment with Washington was strategically sound or dangerously short-sighted is a conversation worth having. It is not one that has happened in any sustained way within Trinidad and Tobago's public discourse.
The Trade Data Nobody Mentions
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne offered the sharpest public rebuttal. In late December 2025, Browne described Persad-Bissessar's characterisation of CARICOM as "unreliable" as "divisive" and "unfortunate" - and then reached for the numbers.
Trinidad and Tobago earned more than US$1.1 billion from trade with CARICOM in 2024 alone, Browne said, comprising approximately US$784.7 million in domestic exports and US$501.3 million in re-exports. CARICOM is Trinidad and Tobago's second-largest export market after the United States. The country has maintained a net positive trade balance with the Community consistently since CARICOM's inception in 1973. No other member state can say the same.
Browne's argument was pointed: if a partnership that generates over a billion dollars annually in trade surplus is not reliable, what would reliability look like?
The numbers complicate the narrative Persad-Bissessar has constructed. Trinidad and Tobago is not a victim of CARICOM. It is the bloc's dominant exporter, its largest single contributor to the budget, and the principal beneficiary of the preferential trade access that the CARICOM Single Market provides. Excluding petroleum products, Trinidad and Tobago's exports to CARICOM have been estimated at over US$560 million in a recent benchmark year - roughly one quarter of all intra-regional exports, by far the largest share of any member state.
The country's food and beverage manufacturers, its construction materials sector, its light manufacturing base - these industries rely on Caribbean markets in ways that the energy sector does not rely on CARICOM at all. Weakening the regional trade framework does not hurt the petrochemical plants in Point Lisas. It hurts the manufacturers in Chaguanas.
What CARICOM Actually Does - and Does Not
CARICOM's critics can point to decades of unfulfilled promises. The Caribbean Single Market and Economy, envisioned as the backbone of integration, remains roughly 57 percent implemented according to the organisation's own assessments. Non-tariff barriers persist. The customs union is incomplete. Freedom of movement remains unevenly applied. Air and maritime connectivity between member states is fragmented. The institution's culture of producing communiques rather than outcomes is well documented.
The criticism is not new and not entirely wrong.
But CARICOM also provides the framework through which Trinbagonian nationals move visa-free across 15 Caribbean nations. It coordinates disaster response across a hurricane belt where no single island has the resources to manage a Category 5 storm alone. It provides a collective voice in international forums - climate negotiations, trade agreements, maritime boundary disputes - where small island states individually have none. And for the smaller members, the OECS nations, Belize, Guyana, and Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago's financial contribution is not symbolic. It funds core operations.
Reducing funding by the largest single contributor does not reform CARICOM. It weakens it. And a weakened CARICOM affects the smaller members disproportionately more than it affects Trinidad and Tobago.
What Mercosur Offers - and What It Does Not
The Mercosur application has been presented as a forward-looking diversification play. Cabinet approved a dual strategy: pursue associate membership in Mercosur while simultaneously negotiating a Partial Scope Trade Agreement with the bloc, similar to the one Trinidad and Tobago recently concluded with Chile. Trade and Tourism Minister Satyakama Maharaj has argued that Mercosur could activate new export markets for local manufacturers and open doors to investment and technology from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
On paper, the logic is straightforward. Mercosur's combined GDP dwarfs CARICOM's. Brazil alone is a US$2 trillion economy. Associate membership would place Trinidad and Tobago alongside Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in a tier of engagement that offers market access without the full obligations of membership.
But Mercosur is a trade bloc, not a community of nations with shared history, legal systems, and cultural ties. Trinidad and Tobago's trade with South America is modest compared to its trade within CARICOM and with North America. The natural gas and petrochemical exports that drive the economy go primarily to US and European markets. The manufactured goods that depend on regional markets go to Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, and the Eastern Caribbean - not to Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires.
The strategic value of Mercosur membership may be less about trade volumes and more about signalling. It positions Trinidad and Tobago as a player in a larger arena, aligns with the current government's warmer relationship with Washington and by extension with Latin American partners on the US side of the geopolitical divide, and creates leverage in negotiations with CARICOM.
Whether that leverage produces reform or simply damages the regional institution without replacing it is the question nobody in Trinidad and Tobago appears to be asking.
The Historical Echo
The St. Lucia Times drew a parallel to Eric Williams' 1962 withdrawal from the West Indies Federation. Williams famously said "one from ten leaves nought" - that Jamaica's departure made the Federation unviable. His own subsequent withdrawal confirmed it.
The Federation collapsed. What replaced it took decades to build and has never achieved the level of integration the Federation envisioned. CARICOM itself was the replacement, born in 1973 from the wreckage of a more ambitious project. If Trinidad and Tobago's current posture weakens CARICOM to the point of irrelevance, the question is what replaces it - and whether that replacement serves the Caribbean or only Trinidad and Tobago.
The pattern is worth examining honestly. The country that helped build the regional institution is now the one most aggressively undermining it, while simultaneously being the member state that has benefited most from its trade architecture. Persad-Bissessar frames the issue as CARICOM failing Trinidad and Tobago. The trade data suggests the relationship has been far more advantageous to Trinidad and Tobago than to most of its Caribbean partners.
News Americas Now published an analysis warning that CARICOM's survival is at stake. No Trinidad and Tobago outlet has examined what Mercosur membership would actually mean for Caribbean trade, for the freedom of movement that Trinbagonians take for granted when they travel to Barbados or Jamaica, or for the smaller island states that depend on the regional framework that Trinidad and Tobago's funding helps sustain.
The PM has made her frustration clear. The diplomatic signals have been sent. What has not happened is a national conversation about whether the country is better served by reforming the institution it helped build or by walking away from it. Both options have costs. Only one is being discussed.
Sources
- Caribbean National Weekly: "Trinidad and Tobago opposes CARICOM secretary-general reappointment" (March 2026)
- Kaieteur News: "Trinidad opposes reappointment of CARICOM SG" (March 27, 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "PM opposes Barnett renewal" (March 2026)
- St. Lucia Times: Editorial analysis on CARICOM crisis
- News Americas Now: "CARICOM In The Era Of Zero-Sum Geopolitics" (March 30, 2026)
- Global Voices: "As U.S.-Venezuela tensions rise, Trinidad & Tobago thumbs its nose at CARICOM" (December 23, 2025)
- Newsday: "PM hits Caricom as 'unreliable partner' - Thin mask of unity" (December 21, 2025)
- Newsday: "Gaston Browne: Caricom major trade partner with Trinidad and Tobago" (December 22, 2025)
- Trinidad Express: "Billions from Caricom" (December 2025)
- Antigua News: "PM Browne Rebukes Trinidad PM's CARICOM Claims, Cites Trade Data" (December 21, 2025)
- Stabroek News: "Antigua PM stands by Caricom remarks" (January 3, 2026)
- Village Voice News: "T&T Prime Minister Breaks with CARICOM on US Visa Restrictions" (December 21, 2025)
- Al Jazeera: "Venezuela declares Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister persona non grata" (October 28, 2025)
- Trinidad Express: "Sobers: Caricom silent on Venezuelan aggression" (2025)
- Caribbean Life: "Major row over reappointment of Caricom secretary general" (2026)
- CaribPulse: "Persad-Bissessar Says Opposition Voices Marginalized Within CARICOM" (February 25, 2026)
- CARICOM: "Communique - Fiftieth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government" (February 24-27, 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "Minister: Becoming part of Mercosur would benefit T&T" (2026)
- Dominica News Online: "Prime Minister of Trinidad Kamla Persad-Bissessar responds to CARICOM statement on US Visa restrictions" (December 2025)
- TEMPO Networks: "CARICOM In The Era Of Zero-Sum Geopolitics" (March 30, 2026)