Trinidad and Tobago went all in with the US it will prove a costly misjudgment | Kenneth Mohammed

"For small states, geopolitics is not a theatre for bravado but a discipline of diplomacy, restraint and survival. That discipline has now collapsed. Trinidad and Tobago will pay the price of auctioning off its sovereignty to its neocolonial master, the US. The nation now sits dangerously exposed, economically, diplomatically, and potentially militarily, after the US attack on Venezuela and the extraordinary kidnapping of its president, Nicolas Maduro."

"With Delcy Rodriguez now installed as Venezuela's president and Diosdado Cabello still embedded, the Maduro regime remains largely intact. Trinidad and Tobago now faces an openly hostile neighbour whose senior leadership has denounced the dual island state's prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as a complicit enabler of US aggression and designated her persona non grata. This is not misfortune. It is the price of strategic misjudgment."

"This crisis did not arrive overnight. Through rhetorical excess, Persad-Bissessar has steadily narrowed our country's room for manoeuvre. What is now unfolding is the predictable outcome of decades of amateurish improvisation masquerading as governance. Successive administrations have failed to articulate a coherent foreign policy for what was once the wealthiest country in the Caribbean. For small states, the cardinal sin is not choosing the wrong side but collapsing strategic ambiguity."

Trinidad and Tobago abandoned strategic ambiguity and publicly aligned with the United States, eroding diplomatic flexibility and exposing the nation to economic, diplomatic, and potential military risk. The US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro left the Venezuelan regime largely intact while provoking hostility toward Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuelan leaders denounced Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar as complicit and declared her persona non grata. Decades of inconsistent foreign policy and rhetorical excess narrowed manoeuvring space. Successive administrations failed to craft a coherent foreign policy, turning regional bonds into liabilities and making geopolitics a survival crisis for a small state.

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