Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from UN­GA,

New York

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers be­lieves this coun­try does not have to wor­ry about be­ing in­tim­i­dat­ed by the Unit­ed States af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go reaf­firmed its recog­ni­tion of Pales­tine and its sup­port of the “two-state so­lu­tion”.

T&T for­mal­ly recog­nised Pales­tine on May 2, 2024, and es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions on Sep­tem­ber 22, 2024.

The de­ci­sion was made by the Cab­i­net of T&T based on a rec­om­men­da­tion from then For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York yes­ter­day, Sobers said T&T’s po­si­tion has not changed, even with a new ad­min­is­tra­tion in charge.

“As you would know, we ac­cept­ed the ac­cred­i­ta­tion of the Pales­tin­ian am­bas­sador when she came to Trinidad about a month ago. She was warm­ly greet­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go. And we con­tin­ue to have good re­la­tions,” Sobers sought to as­sure.

He added, “But most im­por­tant­ly, just like many oth­er coun­tries have ex­pressed, we want peace, not on­ly in the Mid­dle East but with­in the rest of the world. But as it per­tains to the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple and the Is­raelis, we want peace. That’s the most im­por­tant thing that Trinidad and To­ba­go is ask­ing the world to ac­cede to. Peace in the re­gion.”

One of the peace­ful so­lu­tions be­ing pro­posed by the UN is the two-state so­lu­tion.

This is the cre­ation of an in­de­pen­dent State of Pales­tine along­side the State of Is­rael. The bor­ders of the Pales­tin­ian state will be based on the 1967 Green Line, with some mu­tu­al­ly agreed-up­on land swaps. This would in­clude the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its cap­i­tal.

Based on a re­cent Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly vote on Sep­tem­ber 12, 2025, 142 coun­tries vot­ed in favour of a res­o­lu­tion en­dors­ing the two-state so­lu­tion to the Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict. This vote was on a res­o­lu­tion that backed the “New York De­c­la­ra­tion,” a phased plan to achieve a peace­ful set­tle­ment.

How­ev­er, along with Is­rael, the Unit­ed States, Ar­genti­na, Hun­gary and some of the Ocean­ic coun­tries vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion. The US is Is­rael’s strongest al­ly.

Guardian Me­dia asked Sobers how T&T will main­tain its po­si­tion on Pales­tine while pre­serv­ing its re­la­tion­ship with the US.

“We are a sov­er­eign na­tion. The US re­spects us for our sov­er­eign­ty. And we have good re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States. So, we’ve adopt­ed a par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion in re­la­tion to this is­sue. They’ve re­spect­ed that and we con­tin­ue to have fan­tas­tic re­la­tions with the US,” Sobers re­spond­ed.

Asked if there was any at­tempt by the US to sway T&T to its side on the mat­ter, Sobers cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly said no.

“The US is not a bul­ly. They’ve nev­er bul­lied Trinidad and To­ba­go in any po­si­tion. And to sug­gest oth­er­wise would be pure con­jec­ture, which I’m not in the busi­ness of do­ing,” he said.

Sobers said he is al­so not wor­ried that this for­eign af­fairs stance will jeop­ar­dise the on­go­ing part­ner­ship be­tween T&T and the US as it per­tains to the lat­ter’s nar­co­traf­fick­ing push­back in the Caribbean re­gion.

The Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict is a com­plex and deeply root­ed dis­pute over land, sov­er­eign­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty. Both sides have his­tor­i­cal and na­tion­al claims to the same ter­ri­to­ry, with the con­flict’s ori­gins tied to the late 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies. Both nar­ra­tives in­volve deeply held be­liefs, his­tor­i­cal griev­ances, and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, mak­ing a res­o­lu­tion ex­cep­tion­al­ly chal­leng­ing.