Former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley denounced that the current head of government Persad-Bissessar is trying to turn the country into a “vassal state” of the United States and that sovereignty and national pride are “being undermined”.
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The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has criticized Caricom for not aligning with the United States and supporting Venezuela, reflecting its own political and logistical support to the US military deployment and hostility towards Venezuela.
Rowley said he was deeply disappointed by the way the country is being run. “In all the years that I have lived during the entire life of this nation, 1962 to the present, I have never seen a more unpatriotic and recklessly incompetent leader than Kamla Persad-Bissessar. I have also never witnessed a more offensive statement about ourselves and our sovereign rights to agree or disagree on matters of concern to us and our wider interests and responsibilities.”
#TRINIDAD: Former Prime Minister Keith Rowley has issued a statement criticising Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, her government, and recent positions on foreign relations, regional engagement and national sovereignty. pic.twitter.com/9vJWrDkPAK
— CaribbeanNewsNetwork (@caribbeannewsuk) December 21, 2025
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The former prime minister, who accused Persad-Bissessar of acting without transparency or respect for national dignity, noted that during his tenure Trinidad and Tobago “always projected itself internationally as a safe and independent state.”
“For the Prime Minister and her hapless government to reduce us to a vassal state, taking secret instructions from another country and issuing dire warnings that we should “behave ourselves” lest we offend the United States and lose our access to US visas is to have torn up our Constitution and declared that the very idea of our existence as a nation is not worthy of defence or vision,” Rowley stressed.
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago stated that her government is not aligned with the political ideologies or foreign, economic and security policies of any other member of Caricom. This statement comes in a context where Trinidad and Tobago, along with Guyana, stands out from other CARICOM members for its support of the Trump administration’s policy against Venezuela.
Caricom is composed of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar criticized the unity of Caricom, arguing that it operates in a dysfunctional way and harms the inhabitants of the Caribbean, while Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda responded by defending Caricom as a reliable partner in economy and security, Highlighting their shared history and the strength of uniting small states.
The Caricom Heads of Government Conference Office had expressed concern about the restrictions, and in contrast, Persad-Bissessar warned that Port of Spain was not part of that declaration, also calling for a “measured” response, because the U.S. is within its right to “exercise power” to “promote its interests.”
In this regard, and in view of the statements by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Browne stressed that “respectful dialogue with international partners is not subservience, and regional consultations are not disloyalty.”
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