Ezra-Marie Ben­nett, MSc

Every few years, Caribbean peo­ple find them­selves ask­ing the same un­easy ques­tion when­ev­er big pow­ers start flex­ing in the re­gion: “So… what they want we to do?” With Don­ald Trump back in the White House and “Amer­i­ca First” mak­ing a loud come­back, that ques­tion feels more rel­e­vant than ever.

From where we sit in the Caribbean, US for­eign pol­i­cy does not feel ab­stract or dis­tant. It shows up in trade agree­ments, mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in near­by wa­ters, sanc­tions that qui­et­ly re­shape our economies, and diplo­mat­ic pres­sure that rarely makes the head­lines but is very re­al for the gov­ern­ments who must nav­i­gate it. This time around, “Amer­i­ca First” does not just sound like tough talk. It feels sharp­er, more strate­gic, and far more in­sis­tent on re­gion­al com­pli­ance. 

Mon­roe Doc­trine log­ic is creep­ing back in­to the con­ver­sa­tion, where the hemi­sphere is treat­ed as Amer­i­ca’s space to su­per­vise, man­age, and dis­ci­pline. The lan­guage has changed, but the tone feels fa­mil­iar.

In­stead of open­ly colo­nial ar­gu­ments, the vo­cab­u­lary now speaks of se­cu­ri­ty threats, nar­co-traf­fick­ing net­works, and fears about re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Much of this pres­sure is be­ing chan­nelled through the Venezuela nar­ra­tive, where the coun­try is framed as a re­gion­al dan­ger zone and a crim­i­nal hub. That fram­ing then be­comes jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for an in­creased US mil­i­tary pres­ence and se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions in sur­round­ing wa­ters. For Caribbean states, the sit­u­a­tion is com­pli­cat­ed. No one wants crime, weapons, or traf­fick­ing spilling across bor­ders. At the same time, ac­tions tak­en with­out re­al con­sul­ta­tion raise se­ri­ous con­cerns about sov­er­eign­ty and re­spect. 

Caribbean gov­ern­ments are be­ing nudged to “pick a side.” Si­lence can be read as dis­obe­di­ence. In­de­pen­dence can be read as hos­til­i­ty. Lead­ers are caught in a qui­et diplo­mat­ic squeeze.

And once again, peo­ple on the ground find them­selves ask­ing, “What they want we to do?” But the ten­sion is not on­ly about se­cu­ri­ty. It is al­so about lever­age and de­pen­den­cy.

Many Caribbean economies, in­clud­ing T&T, re­main deeply tied to US trade, en­er­gy ex­ports, re­mit­tances, and de­vel­op­ment fi­nanc­ing. Un­der Trump 2.0, those re­la­tion­ships feel far more trans­ac­tion­al. The un­spo­ken mes­sage sounds like, “We will sup­port you, once you sup­port us.”

That re­al­i­ty forces gov­ern­ments in­to a con­stant bal­anc­ing act. Speak too strong­ly, and the coun­try may feel eco­nom­ic con­se­quences. Stay silent, and re­gion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty be­gins to suf­fer. Or, as Tri­nis would say, some lead­ers feel they must “play it safe and don’t rock the boat.” 

T&T is one of the clear­est ex­am­ples of this dilem­ma. As a ma­jor ex­porter of LNG to the Unit­ed States, T&T ex­ists in a struc­tural­ly de­pen­dent trade re­la­tion­ship.

De­ci­sions about Venezuela or en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion are nev­er pure­ly do­mes­tic de­ci­sions. They are shaped by the knowl­edge that liveli­hoods and rev­enue sit on the line. That is why, cul­tur­al­ly, Tri­nis un­der­stand this kind of pol­i­tics in­stinc­tive­ly. You hear it in every­day rea­son­ing: “We small, we had­da be smart.” Or “Bet­ter we mind we busi­ness.” That is not cow­ardice, it is sur­vival log­ic in an un­equal geopo­lit­i­cal space. 

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this en­vi­ron­ment weak­ens re­gion­al uni­ty. Cari­com does not al­ways speak as one voice, be­cause states ex­ist un­der dif­fer­ent lev­els of pres­sure and ex­po­sure.

Some align qui­et­ly with Wash­ing­ton; oth­ers re­sist or speak out against mil­i­tari­sa­tion. Which re­sults in the ero­sion of mul­ti­lat­er­al spaces which am­pli­fies vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. As glob­al in­sti­tu­tions weak­en, small states lose the very plat­forms that help them ne­go­ti­ate cli­mate fi­nanc­ing, debt re­lief, and de­vel­op­ment sup­port. When those av­enues shrink, coun­tries are pushed back in­to bi­lat­er­al de­pen­den­cy where ne­go­ti­a­tion takes place from a weak­er po­si­tion. 

The Caribbean must shift from re­act­ing in­di­vid­u­al­ly to re­spond­ing col­lec­tive­ly. When the re­gion moves to­geth­er, the tone changes from “What they want we to do?” to some­thing clos­er to “Here is what the Caribbean has de­cid­ed to do.” That is not de­fi­ance. That is dig­ni­ty. 

The truth is that the Caribbean does have lever­age, en­er­gy part­ner­ships, mi­gra­tion co­op­er­a­tion, cul­tur­al in­flu­ence, cli­mate ad­vo­ca­cy, and ge­o­graph­ic po­si­tion­ing. How­ev­er, lever­age on­ly mat­ters when it is used col­lec­tive­ly and not com­pet­i­tive­ly.

At the heart of this mo­ment sits a deep­er ques­tion: what does sov­er­eign­ty re­al­ly mean for small states in a world where pow­er­ful coun­tries still be­have as though the re­gion be­longs to them? If sov­er­eign­ty on­ly counts when it aligns with some­one else’s agen­da, then it is not sov­er­eign­ty at all. It is per­mis­sion. 

The Caribbean now stands at an im­por­tant cross­roads. It can con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing in sur­vival mode, qui­et­ly adapt­ing to shift­ing pres­sures. Or it can com­mit to build­ing re­gion­al con­fi­dence, strate­gic uni­ty, and a diplo­mat­ic pos­ture ground­ed in self-re­spect. If the re­gion does not de­fine its place in the hemi­sphere for it­self, some­one else sure­ly will. And we will still be here ask­ing the same old ques­tion: “What they want we to do?”