Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion as one of the 10 non-per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) is, with­out a doubt, a sig­nif­i­cant diplo­mat­ic mile­stone and a ma­jor for­eign pol­i­cy achieve­ment for T&T and the re­gion.

The fact that the sin­gle open seat for the Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean re­gion was un­con­test­ed is an in­di­ca­tion of the over­whelm­ing sup­port T&T re­ceived, in­clud­ing from its Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) neigh­bours.

As re­vealed by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne in the Sen­ate on April 1, the path to Wednes­day’s vic­to­ry be­gan in 2013, when T&T’s per­ma­nent mis­sion to the UN sig­nalled to the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group at the UN (GRU­LAC), a place­hold­er in­ten­tion to seek elec­tion for the 2027-2028 pe­ri­od.

The pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion re­ceived Cari­com’s en­dorse­ment “with the un­der­stand­ing that we would take the voice of the Cari­com with us to the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil,” Dr Browne added at the time.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing Cari­com en­dorse­ment at the 2024 meet­ing of Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) — the Cari­com or­gan re­spon­si­ble for co­or­di­nat­ing the for­eign poli­cies of its mem­ber states — Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­ten­si­fied T&T’s cam­paign dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Sep­tem­ber 2025.

Both the pre­vi­ous and the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tions must there­fore take cred­it for T&T’s elec­tion to the UN­SC. The im­por­tance of T&T not hav­ing com­pe­ti­tion for the seat, even though there were nine ab­sten­tions from the vote, which was sup­port­ed by 181 coun­tries, is am­pli­fied by Ger­many’s ex­pe­ri­ence. That coun­try was in­volved in a three-way race with Por­tu­gal and Aus­tria for the two seats al­lo­cat­ed to Eu­rope.

The elec­tion of T&T, which had pre­vi­ous­ly served on the UN­SC for two non-per­ma­nent terms from 1985-1986 and 2002-2003, is all the more re­mark­able be­cause it fol­lows a nine-month pe­ri­od dur­ing which T&T ap­pears to have had a fraught re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com mem­bers and the George­town-based Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at it­self, in­clud­ing dif­fer­ences over dead­ly US ki­net­ic strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the re­gion as a zone of peace.

And there is al­so the dis­pute over the re-elec­tion of the Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, which went on for weeks fol­low­ing Cari­com’s 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis.

It is hoped that T&T’s elec­tion to the UN­SC — which could on­ly have been achieved with the strong diplo­mat­ic sup­port of Cari­com mem­ber states — would lead to a less frac­tious re­la­tion­ship among the Cari­com lead­ers.

T&T is due to start its term on Jan­u­ary 1, 2027. A state­ment from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said, “The seat on the UN­SC will el­e­vate our na­tion’s voice on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, pro­vid­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go with a greater op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to dis­cus­sions on glob­al peace, se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op­ment, and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.”

The pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion com­mit­ted to be the Cari­com voice at the UN. That may not now be pos­si­ble on all is­sues — pri­mar­i­ly be­cause Port-of-Spain has adopt­ed a far more pro-US pos­ture than most oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states, whose de­fault po­si­tion is non- in­ter­fer­ence and non-in­ter­ven­tion.

But the main pur­pose of the UN­SC is the main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty, which is cer­tain­ly some­thing all of Cari­com can ral­ly around. T&T, there­fore, must ho­n­our the com­mit­ment to Cari­com and vote for glob­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty, even if that means vot­ing against al­lies who are seem­ing­ly more in­tent on wag­ing war.