Rodney Charles warns of backlash if US political tide turns against Trump

Akash Sama­roo

For­mer UNC MP and for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions Rod­ney Charles is warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment could face po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic fall­out if the bal­ance of pow­er shifts in Wash­ing­ton fol­low­ing the No­vem­ber mid-term elec­tions.

Charles, who served as the MP for Na­pari­ma, be­lieves the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion should be­gin prepar­ing now for that pos­si­bil­i­ty, ar­gu­ing that the po­lit­i­cal winds in the Unit­ed States could change sig­nif­i­cant­ly if De­moc­rats make ma­jor gains in Con­gress.

His warn­ing comes as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to strength­en its re­la­tion­ship with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Just yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly thanked Trump and his ad­min­is­tra­tion for re­duc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tar­iff rate to 10 per cent fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and the Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Wash­ing­ton.

“I want to take a mo­ment to thank Pres­i­dent Trump and his team with your good self for all the bar­gain­ing that we’ve done,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She al­so thanked Sobers for rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in the ne­go­ti­a­tions, say­ing the low­er tar­iff meant “less we had to pay”.

The Prime Min­is­ter said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 10 per cent rate would ben­e­fit the coun­try’s ex­porters and econ­o­my.

But Charles, in a state­ment ti­tled “Is TT prepar­ing for a post-Trump world?”, is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er what could hap­pen if Trump’s Re­pub­li­cans suf­fer sig­nif­i­cant loss­es in No­vem­ber.

He said sce­nario plan­ning was nec­es­sary to en­sure Trinidad and To­ba­go is not caught “flat foot­ed”.

“These winds ought to bring a chill to world lead­ers who have been bend­ing the knee in sup­port of Mr Trump’s agen­da,” Charles said.

He point­ed to re­cent polling which he said showed De­moc­rats with ad­van­tages on con­gres­sion­al vot­ing pref­er­ences, the econ­o­my and vot­er en­thu­si­asm, while Trump faced high dis­ap­proval rat­ings.

“If there is a blue wave as many pre­dict, TT stands to lose if it is not nim­ble, re­mains flat foot­ed, and lacks po­lit­i­cal grav­i­tas,” Charles warned.

His com­ments come against the back­drop of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s close align­ment with Wash­ing­ton on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty since re­turn­ing to of­fice last year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been one of the Caribbean’s strongest sup­port­ers of US ki­net­ic strikes against al­leged drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the re­gion. In Sep­tem­ber 2025, she pub­licly backed the US mil­i­tary cam­paign and said she had “no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers”, lat­er main­tain­ing her sup­port as the strikes con­tin­ued.

T&T al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the US-led Joint Task Force South­ern Spear, un­der which Wash­ing­ton co­or­di­nat­ed mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions with Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean part­ners against al­leged nar­cotics traf­fick­ers. That ini­tia­tive has since been re­placed by Joint Task Force-West­ern Hemi­sphere.

The coun­try is al­so part of the 18-na­tion Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion, known as “Shield of the Amer­i­c­as”, which Trump launched in Flori­da in March. Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed that launch. The ini­tia­tive seeks to strength­en in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and co­or­di­nate re­gion­al op­er­a­tions against or­gan­ised crime and drug car­tels.

Charles warned that a change in Wash­ing­ton’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape could re­sult in greater scruti­ny of some of those op­er­a­tions.

He sug­gest­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions could be launched in­to Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear over al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings in Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic wa­ters, as well as in­to the US op­er­a­tion in Venezuela which re­sult­ed in the re­moval of Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has main­tained that T&T’s mil­i­tary did not par­tic­i­pate in the op­er­a­tion in Venezuela.

Charles said T&T should there­fore re­con­sid­er how it con­ducts for­eign pol­i­cy, ar­gu­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter should al­low greater flex­i­bil­i­ty rather than per­son­al­ly stak­ing out po­si­tions from which the coun­try may lat­er find it dif­fi­cult to re­treat.

He al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to re­assess its ap­proach to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, Mid­dle East pol­i­tics and vot­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tions, while tak­ing “gen­uine” steps to re­pair re­la­tions with Cari­com and Venezuela.

With­out Trump’s pro­tec­tion, TT might be­come a re­gion­al lep­er, shunned by its neigh­bours across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean,” Charles warned.

He said for­eign pol­i­cy must ul­ti­mate­ly be dri­ven by long-term na­tion­al in­ter­est rather than per­son­al­i­ties or po­lit­i­cal head­lines.

“Geopol­i­tics is not about head­lines, show­ing pow­er, and ig­nor­ing seis­mic changes when they oc­cur,” Charles said. “It is about cold, dis­pas­sion­ate cal­cu­la­tions of na­tion­al in­ter­est in the short, medi­um and long terms.”