Ex-UNC MPs warn T&T could face scrutiny as Democrats take Congress

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

With De­moc­rats now in con­trol of the US Con­gress fol­low­ing Tues­day's midterm elec­tions, two for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MPs are warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go could face in­creased scruti­ny over its for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tions and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with Wash­ing­ton.

For­mer trade min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said the out­come high­light­ed the risks of align­ing too close­ly with a par­tic­u­lar US ad­min­is­tra­tion rather than main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States as a long-term strate­gic part­ner.

"Un­doubt­ed­ly, the Unit­ed States is a per­ma­nent strate­gic re­al­i­ty for T&T, and Don­ald Trump is a pres­i­dent whose ad­min­is­tra­tion, like every oth­er, will even­tu­al­ly end. A for­eign pol­i­cy built around the lat­ter rather than the for­mer is in­her­ent­ly vul­ner­a­ble," Bharath said.

"How­ev­er, from events since April 2025, it is ap­par­ent that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­fused T&T's na­tion­al in­ter­est with Trump's po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests and ide­o­log­i­cal pref­er­ences."

Bharath ar­gued that since tak­ing of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had re­peat­ed­ly sig­nalled sup­port for the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, with­out ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ing that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and poli­cies are tem­po­rary.

"This was an ex­tra­or­di­nary de­par­ture from diplo­mat­ic con­ven­tion. The fun­da­men­tal mis­take is the fail­ure to dis­tin­guish be­tween the Unit­ed States as a per­ma­nent strate­gic part­ner and Trump as a tem­po­rary oc­cu­pant of the White House," he said.

"That in­abil­i­ty may now have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for T&T fol­low­ing the De­moc­rats' sweep­ing vic­to­ries in both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate."

Bharath said he had con­sis­tent­ly warned that while strate­gic align­ment with the Unit­ed States was im­por­tant, po­lit­i­cal align­ment with Trump was not.

"T&T has be­come so in­vest­ed in the po­lit­i­cal for­tunes of one Amer­i­can pres­i­dent that it now risks find­ing it­self diplo­mat­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed as po­lit­i­cal winds shift in Wash­ing­ton. In­deed, we are in­creas­ing­ly per­ceived with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty as a po­lit­i­cal ap­pendage of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion."

He point­ed to T&T's sup­port for Trump's stance on Venezuela, its po­si­tions on Cu­ba and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, strained re­la­tions with some Cari­com part­ners and what he de­scribed as an in­creas­ing­ly con­fronta­tion­al ap­proach to re­gion­al diplo­ma­cy.

Bharath said these de­vel­op­ments threat­ened the coun­try's tra­di­tion­al diplo­mat­ic in­de­pen­dence.

"There is a dan­ger that the Gov­ern­ment has placed ex­ces­sive em­pha­sis on demon­strat­ing po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and in­suf­fi­cient em­pha­sis on ex­plain­ing the long-term na­tion­al ben­e­fits of that re­la­tion­ship. Have in­vest­ment com­mit­ments, en­er­gy agree­ments and se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments been in­sti­tu­tion­alised suf­fi­cient­ly to sur­vive a change of ad­min­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton?" he asked.

"The Gov­ern­ment must demon­strate that it is pur­su­ing a 'T&T First' for­eign pol­i­cy, not a Trump-aligned for­eign pol­i­cy."

For­mer Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage con­struc­tive­ly with De­moc­rats and dis­tance it­self from what he de­scribed as "Trump­ism."

"It is nec­es­sary that the Gov­ern­ment en­gages dis­creet­ly with the De­moc­rats and dis­en­gages from Trump­ism im­me­di­ate­ly and diplo­mat­i­cal­ly. The soon­er, the bet­ter," Charles said.

He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment had adopt­ed what he de­scribed as sev­er­al un­pop­u­lar po­si­tions on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, in­clud­ing its stance on the Cuban em­bar­go and re­port­ed in­volve­ment in Venezue­lan af­fairs.

Charles al­so ref­er­enced al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings in Caribbean wa­ters, T&T's host­ing of a US mil­i­tary radar in­stal­la­tion, re­port­ed plans for large-scale ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence da­ta cen­tres and crit­i­cisms of De­moc­rats as be­ing "too far left and woke."

He warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go could be­come in­creas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

"We are now aligned with a deeply un­pop­u­lar US ad­min­is­tra­tion. Con­gres­sion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions may re­veal our roles in Maduro's re­moval and in al­leged ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings in Caribbean wa­ters," Charles said.

"We may find our­selves not on­ly un­der in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia scruti­ny but al­so be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, giv­en some of our ut­ter­ances and ac­tions. The con­fir­ma­tion of a new US am­bas­sador to T&T could en­counter chal­lenges, and T&T may be crit­i­cised in diplo­mat­ic fo­rums."

Charles called for im­me­di­ate diplo­mat­ic out­reach and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions ef­forts aimed at re­pair­ing re­la­tions with De­mo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers.

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of a bi­par­ti­san team of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, to de­vel­op com­pre­hen­sive for­eign pol­i­cy strate­gies.

"These mat­ters should be dis­cussed in cau­cus, with the wider pub­lic and in Par­lia­ment," he said.

For­mer UNC ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Dr Jack Warn­er de­scribed the elec­tion re­sults as a de­ci­sive re­jec­tion of Trump-style pol­i­tics.

"Trump­ism is dead. For­ev­er," Warn­er said.

"For T&T and the Caribbean, the les­son is clear. Small states can­not build their for­eign poli­cies around the for­tunes of one Amer­i­can pres­i­dent or po­lit­i­cal par­ty."

He said the re­gion's in­ter­ests in trade, en­er­gy, in­vest­ment and se­cu­ri­ty re­quired sta­ble diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships with Amer­i­can in­sti­tu­tions re­gard­less of which par­ty con­trolled the White House or Con­gress.

"Trump's de­feat has not end­ed his pres­i­den­cy, but it has fun­da­men­tal­ly al­tered the in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment in which he ex­er­cis­es pow­er," Warn­er said.

Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns.

"All of you who thought it was ac­cept­able to side with big­otry, racism, dis­hon­esty, re­gion­al bul­ly­ing, the at­tempt­ed dis­man­tling of Cari­com, the star­va­tion of Cu­ba, the at­tempt­ed dis­man­tling of the ICC, ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings in the Caribbean Sea and a to­tal lack of grace in gov­er­nance, I hope you now see the er­ror of your ways," Lal­la said.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Phillip Alexan­der at­trib­uted the Re­pub­li­cans' loss­es large­ly to eco­nom­ic con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­fla­tion, but pre­dict­ed the par­ty could re­cov­er by the next pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

"Amer­i­can pol­i­tics are dif­fer­ent from ours. US vot­ers take is­sues such as fu­el prices and the cost of liv­ing very se­ri­ous­ly. I sus­pect the Re­pub­li­cans' in­abil­i­ty to bring in­fla­tion down hurt them more than they an­tic­i­pat­ed," Alexan­der said.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that midterm elec­tions tra­di­tion­al­ly serve as a ref­er­en­dum on the gov­ern­ing par­ty and of­ten pro­duce loss­es for the pres­i­dent's par­ty.

"This is a midterm elec­tion. Those elect­ed now will have to de­fend their promis­es and achieve­ments. Don­ald Trump is not some­one who al­lows set­backs to de­rail him," Alexan­der said.

"US vot­ers have a long his­to­ry of pun­ish­ing the par­ty in the White House dur­ing midterm elec­tions, re­gard­less of who is in of­fice."

He re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the re­sults rep­re­sent­ed a po­lit­i­cal col­lapse for Trump and crit­i­cised lo­cal at­tempts to link the out­come to do­mes­tic pol­i­tics.

"While some would like to por­tray this as a wipe­out, it is not. This de­vel­op­ment will most like­ly be cor­rect­ed in Trump's favour at the next pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and it will have no bear­ing on the for­tunes of the PNM," Alexan­der said.