The cur­rent Mid­dle East war un­der­scores the need for re­gion­al uni­ty. Rapid­ly emerg­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges will im­pact Cari­com states, ex­pos­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and test­ing re­silience. The longer the con­flict en­dures, the greater the con­se­quences.

The re­gion is a net im­porter of food and en­er­gy. These are sen­si­tive vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, and the in­fla­tion­ary im­pact will af­fect all mem­ber states. Most are in a frag­ile fis­cal po­si­tion, and some are in IMF pro­grammes, and do not have the fis­cal space or buffers to pro­tect their pop­u­la­tions from the neg­a­tive im­pact of in­fla­tion. Most mem­ber states are de­pen­dent on tourism, which is sus­cep­ti­ble to ris­ing trav­el costs and glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty. On­ly Guyana, Suri­name and Trinidad and To­ba­go are net en­er­gy ex­porters and are there­fore bet­ter po­si­tioned to mit­i­gate the neg­a­tive fall­out.

The oth­er chal­lenges are safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and the ever-present dan­ger of nat­ur­al dis­as­ter. One hur­ri­cane can do tremen­dous dam­age and take years to re­build, as hap­pened in Ja­maica last year. Hur­ri­cane sea­son starts next month and rep­re­sents un­known but re­al risks.

There are geopo­lit­i­cal and en­er­gy risks, as ex­em­pli­fied by the threats fac­ing Cu­ba and Venezuela’s ex­pe­ri­ence. There are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in out­look and ap­proach to ad­dress­ing these geopo­lit­i­cal dan­gers among mem­ber states.

These ex­is­ten­tial dan­gers are best faced by a joint ap­proach and a unit­ed front. Cari­com mem­ber states are too small to have an im­pact on large re­gion­al play­ers. How­ev­er, they must find the space to ma­noeu­vre around the world pow­er that dom­i­nates the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Trade, com­merce and the Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff have been ben­e­fi­cial to the re­gion and are sol­id ex­am­ples of re­gion­al co­her­ence.

These mat­ters ought to have been the top­ics that gal­vanised minds to de­vel­op pos­si­ble pol­i­cy so­lu­tions and ac­tions to ad­dress these chal­lenges. In­stead, the af­ter­math of the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment, held from Feb­ru­ary 24–27, 2026, in St Kitts and Nevis, has fo­cused on a dis­pute over the pro­ce­dure em­ployed to reap­point the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.

Every state has its na­tion­al in­ter­ests, and its lead­ers are tasked with ar­tic­u­lat­ing them and ob­tain­ing the best pos­si­ble re­sult for its cit­i­zens. This means the lead­ers must at­tend the rel­e­vant meet­ings to ad­vance their coun­try’s agen­da or in­ter­ests.

The key point is that Trinidad and To­ba­go did not at­tend the meet­ing to present a case or re­solve the mat­ter.

It is dif­fi­cult not to con­clude that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pres­ence at the con­fer­ence was pri­mar­i­ly to meet US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio. Hav­ing met this ob­jec­tive, at­tend­ing the cau­cus was not a pri­or­i­ty.

One could spec­u­late that this cur­rent con­tro­ver­sy would have been avoid­ed or al­le­vi­at­ed had T&T been in at­ten­dance to present its case. Un­like the Unit­ed States, T&T is not a re­gion­al hege­mon and needs Cari­com as much as Cari­com needs it.

It is hoped that the tenets of diplo­ma­cy fol­low and that all par­ties con­cerned will find com­mon ground to move on.