Trump’s military build-up in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago

The views expressed herein are solely those of the writer.

By Dr Emanuel Patrick Quashie.

About the Author:

Dr Emanuel Patrick Quashie is a Lecturer in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. He has over 8 years’ experience as a qualitative researcher and teaches a variety of courses in International Relations both at the undergraduate and graduate level.

This is part two to the original article titled, Realism, US military presence in the Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago. This article is mostly an updated version to the original with additional information primarily focusing on US president Donald Trump’s recent ramping up of military activities in the Caribbean aimed at toppling the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela under the guise of an “anti-drug trafficking” campaign. In doing so, the author explores the ongoing situation through the realist lens to offer a much-needed theoretical analysis of the possible motives behind Trump’s actions and Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar unwavering support for Trump’s militarisation in the region that may facture the regional body: CARICOM.

In our contemporary self-help international anarchic system, weaker states like CARICOM countries who do not have the military capabilities to efficaciously defend themselves on their own and can only exert very little influence in the international sphere as a valuable ally or potential ally to a superpower (hegemon) will often find themselves engaging in a balancing act on the most pressing issues regionally and internationally. Therefore, small island developing/weak states foreign policy choices tend to lean towards allying themselves with great powers power (‘bandwagon’ [Walt 1990] as cite in Braveboy-Wagner, 2010) or they might ally with other small and weaker states (Rothstein 1968), or maintain their neutrality (the historical stance of European small states) or, in the postwar period, resort to nonalignment, a strategy that eschewed Cold War alliances and permitted countries to exploit superpower rivalries (e.g., Martin 1962; Jensen 1966 as cited in Braveboy-Wagner, 2010).

Hence, it is not surprising to me to see some CARICOM member states (though, I do not agree with their position) explicitly (in the case of Trinidad) and implicitly have allied with the US on some of the most pressing regional issues – like, for instance, when Jamaica allied with the US against Venezuela. In fact, there is also currently a matter — arbitration — before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in relation to the matter of how much Venezuela should be compensated for its 49% shares in Petrojam — Jamaica’s state-owned oil refinery. This resulted from the forceful acquisition of Venezuela’s company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) 49% shares in Petrojam in 2019 following Prime Minister’s Andrew Holness tabling a bill in parliament for the compulsory acquisition of the shares (NCB Capital Markets, 2025). The reason that was given at the time was to avoid US sanctions imposed on Nicolas Maduro’s regime. In Another case example, Jamaica, along with the US also supported Guyana in its border dispute with Venezuela while other Caribbean countries took a more neutral position and partook in a dialogue.

This dialogue manifested in the Argyle Summit initiated by the Most Hon. Dr Ralph Gonsalves, former Prime Minster of St Vincent and the Grenadines and the then-Pro-Tempore President of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Most Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit who facilitated talks between the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and the President of Guyana Mohamed Irfaan Ali. The summit resulted in a Joint Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace between Guyana and Venezuela ending with Venezuela and Guyana agreeing to: “. . . directly or indirectly, will not threaten or use force against one another in any circumstances, including those consequential to any existing controversies between the two States” (The Joint Declaration of Argyle For Dialogue Between Guyana and Venezuela, 2023). This, of course, is in keeping with international law, particularly the customary rule of Article 2(4) of UN Charter, which “prohibits the threat or use of force and calls on all Members to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other States.”

The Joint Declaration from the Argyle Summit further stated that both countries also agreed “that any controversies between the two States will be resolved in accordance with international law, including the Geneva Agreement dated February 17, 1966. Committed to the pursuance of good neighbourliness, peaceful coexistence, and the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean.” The joint declaration also “noted Guyana’s assertion that it is committed to the process and procedures of the International Court of Justice for the resolution of the border controversy” as well as noted “Venezuela’s assertion of its lack of consent and lack of recognition of the International Court of Justice and its jurisdiction in the border controversy.” Since the Argyle Summit, both the foreign affairs ministry of Guyana and Venezuela met and held their first meeting of the Joint Commission in Brazil on January 26, 2024 in accordance with the “Joint Declaration of Argyle for Dialogue and Peace that was agreed upon after the meeting of the Presidents of Guyana and Venezuela on December 14, 2023” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Cooperative Republic of Guyana, 2024).

In another current case example, Trinidad and Tobago has seemingly allied with the United States after publicly expressing its support for the Trump administration’s military presence in the Caribbean as well as military action against Venezuela within the context of targeting drug traffickers whether perceived or real. For instance, the newly elected Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar praised a recent US illegal strike on a boat that the Trump administration claimed were carrying 11 Venezuelan gang members from the Tren de Aragua cartel that was loaded with drugs bound for the US. In her fiery statement in support of the Trump administration’s actions, she said:

“I, along with most of the country, am happy that the U.S. naval deployment is having success in their mission. The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the U.S. military should kill them all violently.” The Trinidad prime minister also stated that: “Our country has been ravaged by bloody violence and addiction because of the greed of the cartels. The slaughter of our people is fueled by evil cartel traffickers.” Some might be inclined to agree or even support Kamala Persad-Bissessar position, given the burgeoning gun violence that has rocketed the region in the past few years. However, the data says otherwise on this matter. For example, in a recent peer-reviewed journal article published in the European Journal of International Security by Dr Yonique Campbell, Professor Anthony Harriott, Dr Felicia Grey and Dr Damion Blake titled From the ‘war on drugs’ to the ‘war on guns’: South–South cooperation between Mexico and the Caribbean diagnoses the burgeoning gun violence epidemic permeating the Caribbean is as a result of the illegal trafficking of guns stemming from the illegal trafficking of guns from the US, given that an “estimated 60–90% of guns used in criminal acts in LAC are trafficked from the United States”. The article also offers practical solutions — such as a “ban on the sale of military-grade weapons to civilians” and “punitive measures against legitimate carriers that convey illegal weapons across national borders as well as monitoring and performance reviews.” Hence, the Trump administration should also declare a War on the illegal trafficking of guns from the US that is responsible for the bloody violence ravaging our communities and destroying and slaughter of our people as the Prime Minster of Trinidad and Tobago Kamala Persad-Bissessar stated in which she seems to blame the issue solely on “evil traffickers”.

International data and even the US government own data do not support the Trump administration’s claim that Nicolas Maduro “is one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world and a threat to the national security” of the United States, declared US Attorney General Pam Bondi after announcing a USD $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the Venezuelan President. As accusation Nicolas Maduro outrightly and publicly denied; however, within hours, the administration deployed more than 4,000 US military personnel to the Caribbean waters. It is important to note that the US General Attorney General Pam Bondi presented no conclusive empirical evidence to support the administration’s claims about Nicolas Maduro. In fact, Venezuela is not even a cocaine-producing country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and nearly “all coca crops – the main ingredient of cocaine – are concentrated in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Colombia in particular – has seen its cocaine production grow dramatically in recent years, due both to an increase in cultivation area (almost 100,000 hectares more since 2020) and, more significantly, because of higher yields in refining the product, according to UN researchers,” writes CNN analysis Stefano Pozzebon (2025). Stefano (2025) also wrote in the article that even US investigators from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reached similar conclusions in their annual report published in March that “84% of the cocaine seized in the US comes from Colombia”. In fact, the two cartels that pose the most significant drug trafficking threats to the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), are the: Sinaloa Cartel that was formerly led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and is considered one of Mexico’s oldest and most powerful drug trafficking groups with considerable influence in the Mexican government and public institutions. The other is Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which “splintered from Sinaloa in 2010 and is among Mexico’s fastest-growing cartels, with operations in some two-thirds of the country. It is also present in more than three dozen countries and all fifty U.S. states” (Council on Foreign Relations, 2025).

In addition, United States Senator of the Republican Party, Rand Paul recently stated in an interview: “There is no fentanyl made in Venezuela. Not just a little bit, none”. The Kentucky Republican Senator also stated that during his interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “When you kill someone, you should know, if you’re not at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone’s name at least. . . You have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime” (Cohen, 2025). Thus, it is a fact that Venezuela poses no threat to the United States vis-a-vis the production or trafficking of fentanyl or any dangerous drugs for that matter. In fact, the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment published by the US Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration lists Mexican cartels as the major drug threat to America as it relates to methamphetamine and fentanyl as well as the cause of thousands of American death every year from drug overdose from drugs that are trafficked to the United States from Mexican cartels – such as Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG).

For example, the report reads: “Mexican cartels’ production, trafficking, and distribution of powerful illicit synthetic drugs, chiefly fentanyla and methamphetamine, represent a dire threat to public health, the rule of law, and national security in the United States. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG), together with their procurement, distribution, and financial support networks stretching across Latin America, China, and other key global nodes, remain the dominant threats for the trafficking of these and other drugs into the United States. In the 12-month period ending in October 2024, 84,076 Americans died from a drug overdose, according to the most recent available provisional statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), underscoring the devastating effect these cartels have on our country.”

Therefore, Trump’s military actions in our Caribbean waters does in fact constitute a war crime. It is also clear that the use of “drug trafficking” as the justification for the wantonly cruel violence we have been witnessing over the past couple of months in our Caribbean waters is just a pretext for a more insidious agenda, that is, regime change and oil in Venezuela. The “drug trafficking” threat posed by Venezuela as is being claimed by the Trump administration is reminiscent of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) claims that was used by the Bush administration to justify its illegal war in Iraq in 2003. Despite the mounting and obvious evidence that suggests that Trump’s military presence in our Caribbean waters has little to do with “drug trafficking,” Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar remains steadfast in her unwavering support of Trump’s military actions in our Caribbean waters. So, if the data does not support the Trump administration claims nor does the administration’s military actions in Caribbean waters is in agreement with international law, why is the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago remains enthusiastically supportive of the US military presence in Caribbean waters?

So, if the data does not support the Trump administration claims nor does the administration’s military actions in Caribbean waters is in agreement with international law, why is Trinidad and Tobago [as a state] is enthusiastically in support of the US’s military presence in Caribbean waters? If we place it within the realist framework, as we have already done in terms of weaker states allying with more powerful states, we can also add that Trinidad might also be pursuing its own self-interest – economic self-interest given that the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s sale of subsidized oil to the Caribbean through the Petrocaribe initiative had pushed “traditional supplier Trinidad and Tobago out of the region in search of new markets,” as Trinidad had even cited concerns that the Petrocaribe programme would compete with its sales, according to a Reuter news article written by Linda Hutchinson-Jafar in 2008. The article also noted a quote from Kenneth Allum, Petrotrin Vice President for Refinery and Marketing before it eventual shut down in 2018 saying: “We lost market in the (Caribbean) region, but the displaced products are now going into other markets” including the United States. Perhaps, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar fervent support for US military presence in the Caribbean and acts of aggression against Venezuela is also brewed out of old-fashioned realism with a view that Trinidad and Tobago may once again fill regional market demands for oil if Nicolas Maduro is removed from power and resulting in the end the Petrocaribe initiative.

Still don’t think it’s about oil? Former US Ambassador James Story, who served as both Ambassador and Charge d’Affaires to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from July 2018 until May 2023 in an interview with 60 minutes seemingly disregarded international law and the sovereignty of Venezuela by openly stating the real reason (whether deliberately or unintentionally) why the US is about to launch what I think is a regime change war in Venezuela. James Story stated that: “This [Nicolas Maduro] is a very bad actor sitting on top of the world’s largest known reserves of oil. Plus the critical minerals that will fuel the 21st century economy. And he is in bed with our strategic competitors.”

Who is America’s strategic competitors that the former ambassador might be referring to? If I am to speculate, I believe it’s China and Russia. The two countries that Venezuela has very close relations. In fact, China is the largest importer of Venezuela oil, as the country directly and indirectly imports roughly 503,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan crude and fuel, which is approximately 55% of Venezuela’s total exports (Aizhu and Liu, 2025).

In the same CNBS 60 Minutes segment, however, the investigative reporter stated that “most fentanyl is produced in Mexico or China, and according to the DEA, Venezuela is not a major producer of cocaine either, but it is a transit route for it. You know who else is transit route for drugs – such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and even ecstasy? Trinidad and Tobago, according to the US Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (2014):

“Trinidad and Tobago’s location, porous borders, and direct transportation routes to Europe, West Africa, Canada, and the United States make it an ideal location for cocaine and marijuana transshipment. Marijuana is produced in Trinidad and Tobago and is the most widely used drug domestically, but other drugs, including cocaine, heroin, solvents, pharmaceuticals, and ecstasy, are also available.”

If Venezuela is not a major drug producer country, but like Trinidad is a transit route because of its ideal geographical location, then why not cooperate with the government of Venezuela on building a robust interdiction effort? Or even implement a Ship Rider Agreement between the USA and Venezuela. This approach would undoubtedly be effective as well as keeping in line with international law. Perhaps, it is superficial of me to think this way in light of the Trump’s already chosen weapon of engagement: military force. It has been, and always is, about regime change and oil in Venezuela. Trump’s war in our Caribbean waters is not about us, or our safety and security, or our lives and livelihoods, or about an anti-drug trafficking campaign, or tackling the gun violence that continues to ravage our communities. They do not care about Trinidad and Tobago, either. It’s about US’s geopolitical and strategic interests in the region. It’s a war brewed out of US hegemony hunger, lust for power, capitalist greed and the reactivation of the US Monroe Doctrine. It is an illegal war that will have catastrophic ripple effects throughout the region not least resulting in mass migration, soaring energy cost, thousands of innocent deaths, significant decline in tourism, food scarcity and calamitous economic and environmental damages.

However, removing Nicolas Maduor through military intervention may not work in Trinidad’s favour, given the US has its own interest in the region to remain the dominant power – a goal it has long pursued that dates all the way back to the Monroe Doctrine (1823). A doctrine that I argued in my 2023 peer-reviewed journal article published by Latin American Policy titled, Rethinking the Caribbean Basin Initiative: A case study of US foreign policy toward the Caribbean have been revamped through the Caribbean Basin Initiative, “with the explicit purpose of helping revitalize and diversify Caribbean Basin economies through the provision of a set of trade preferences on a range of tangible commodities. Yet, it has failed to accomplish its primary goal because structural problems have made it difficult for Caribbean basin countries to take full advantage of the benefits offered through the initiative.” Hence, why I urged the Trump administration to rethink the CBI programme through the elimination of the programme’s “unilateral nature” and to include some services, allow for more value‐added goods, among other things. Nevertheless, the Petrocaribe programme has been embraced by many Caribbean countries because it without a doubt enabled them to meet their energy needs as well as empower those who joined the initiative to begin to develop their economies more efficiently and independently of the US. While the US has failed for many years, to offer an alternative to Petrocaribe, granting Venezuela the opportunity to emerge “as a powerful counterweight to U.S. power in the Caribbean” leaving officials in Washington to face “the possibility that formerly dependent countries would break free from the U.S. orbit,” writes Edward Hunt in Foreign Policy in Focus, a Think Tank and a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Hence, the removal Nicolas Maduro is more likely to serve US hegemonic self-interest than it would Trinidad and Tobago’s.

The Caribbean Basin Initiative also did not work because its real goal was about countering the threat of communism in the region. This was enunciated by the late President Ronald Reagan who initiated the programme in his CBI address at the Organisation of American States on February 24, 1982:

“A new kind of colonialism stalks the world today and threatens our independence. It is brutal and totalitarian; it is not of our hemisphere, but it threatens our hemisphere and has established footholds on American soil for the expansion of its colonialist ambitions…. A dark future is foreshadowed by the poverty and repression of Castro’s Cuba, the tightening grip of the totalitarian left in Grenada and Nicaragua, and the expansion of Soviet‐backed Cuban‐managed support for violent revolution in Central America ([Reagan, 1982], Quashie, 2023).

The US anti-communist policies dates back earlier than the CBI programme, which includes a deadly plan to attack a number of US cities and countries including Trinidad and Tobago and blame it on Cuba. On April 17, 1961, the US CIA-backed counter-revolutionary Cuban exile force failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba resulted in the US Joint Chief of Staff drawing up plans to launch a “secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba” (Abrams, 2023). A.B Abrams (2023) in his book, Atrocity fabrication and its consequences: how fake news shapes world order stated that: the proposal codenamed “Operation Northwoods” emphasised: World opinion, and the United Nations forum should be favourably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere,” with recommendation to cast Cuba as a threat to Western Hemisphere and plans to develop a “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”. In 1963, Mr Bamford wrote that the Joint Chief of Staff also proposed secret US attacks on Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, both British Commonwealth countries that they were hoping if the US secretly attacked them and blame Cuba, it would lure the England into the war against Fidel Castro.

Again, historically, US’s interest in the region invariably has little to do with addressing the region’s concerns and more to do with America’s self-interest and hidden agenda. Thus, the idea that the US military presence in the Caribbean will result in a reduction in illegal guns, drugs and violent crimes is to have a fanciful and superficial understanding of Us foreign policy. Plain and simple, it’s about Venezuela’s oil and nothing to do with supposed “drug cartels,” or “narco-terrorists” or even the issue of illegal guns that actually comes from the United States and are the main source of the burgeoning gin violence that is ravaging our Caribbean communities. For instance, Venezuela holds the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. In fact, the Biden administration tried to reach out to Nicolas Maduro to strike a deal after the administration banned the import of oil and natural gas from Russia to penalize them for invading Ukraine. In 2017, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe stated in his book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump” that Trump (in his first term as president) mentioned going to war in Venezuela for oil. In his book, the former FBI Director wrote: “I don’t understand why we’re not looking at Venezuela. Why we’re not at war with Venezuela? They have all the oil and they’re in our back door,” says President Donald Trump (Ward, 2019). So, if Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago thinks this is about our regional concerns, she might soon be in for a major lesson in geopolitics and the international political economy of war and conflict.

Final thoughts

Perhaps, CARICOM member states like Trinidad and Tobago that supports US military presence in our Caribbean should take into serious consideration the US history in the region and beyond. It might be Venezuela today, and you the next day. In addition to the obvious violations of international humanitarian law, as a Vincentian and a proud citizen of the Caribbean, I fear that I could also be insinuated by US missiles if I was traversing the Caribbean waters in a fisherman’s speeding boat. This is not hyperbole. It’s now a reality for Caribbean citizens when taking into consideration Trump’s history of violating international law, disregard for human life and unlawful detentions and mistreatment policies of innocent civilians. In fact, there’s empirical evidence to suggest that such could occur, given that this occurrence has already taken place in our Caribbean during the US so-called “War on Drugs”. There were cases whereby some Caribbean fishermen, particularly Jamaican fishermen were allegedly subjected to abusive measures by US Coast Guard and even accused of drug smuggling, stripped naked, had their boats burnt, and some were reportedly shackled like slaves, writes Victoria Bekiempis in a 2019 article published in The Guadian titled Jamaican fishermen forcibly held and abused by US Coast Guard, lawsuit says. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had even filed a petition to the US Supreme Court on behalf of 4 Jamaican fishermen who were secretly detained at sea in 2017 on four US Coast Guard vessel for more than a month without due process and in inhumane conditions, according to a 2022 press release from the ACLU Media Office. Hence, it’s not unseemly as a Caribbean national to think that what just happened to those 11 individuals will not happen to any Caribbean citizen. They may not only target fishermen, but also passenger boats that travel between some of the smaller islands and then claimed they were all terrorists.

The Caribbean, at this very moment, can no longer be considered a “zone of peace”. The West Indies Federation failed after one from ten left nought. Now, it would appear that one [Trinidad and Tobago] from 15 openly supporting Trump’s military actions in our Caribbean waters, might trigger the collapse of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). While CARICOM typically have their differences — like, for instance, in 2019 when a split was created among CARICOM member states when a handful of Caribbean countries partook in a multi-lateral meeting, which was between the leaders of Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti and Saint Lucia and US President Donald Trump (in his first term as president) in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines former Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves had criticised the talks as CARICOM chairman and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, at the time, Dr. Timothy Harris, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Trinidad and Tobago former Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, were not invited to the multi-talks with Trump. Thus, it is not uncommon for CARICOM to split on regional and international matters; however, it seems much different this time around given Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar unwavering and explicit support for Trump’s military actions in our Caribbean waters.

What is currently taking place in our region is undoubtedly a not-so-covert CIA operational disaster in the making, given that all the empirical evidence points to Venezuela as a fentanyl free country (meaning that the country does not produce fentanyl, or is not even on the top list of countries who produce, manufacture, and traffic the drug or any drugs as a matter of fact that ends up on American streets); however, the Trump administration with the support of Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister is moving forward with regime change in Venezuela under the guise of “War on Drugs” likened to the elusive “War on Terror” when they invaded Iraq in 2003 under the guise of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Moreover, the recent gas explosion in Venezuela can also be interpreted as the sort of destabilising technique that typifies the US clandestine coup d’état tactics. In fact, US President Donald Trump already stated that he has ordered the CIA to covertly overthrow the Nicolas Maduro government. Donald Trump and Trinidad’s prime minister is a threat to regional stability and the Caribbean’s longstanding reputation as a zone of peace. Trump’s illegal military operations in our Caribbean waters must be categorically condemned by all right-thinking Caribbean leaders. We cannot allow Venezuela to fall. If that happens, it will destabilise the entire Caribbean region. This is not hyperbole. This will be our reality in the Caribbean. We will have to deal with a massive immigration crisis, rapid decline in tourism and foreign direct investments, environmental degradation, increased energy cost (electricity, gas at home and at the pump, etc.), an increase in political violence in Venezuela as a result of possible warring factions in the country that will most likely spill over to other countries in the Caribbean in the form of violent gangs and violent gangs that already exist in our Caribbean countries will become even more dangerous as they’ll now have even more easy access to high-powered weapons from Venezuela from local mercenaries who supplied them by the US to aid Trump’s coup d’état attempt. Unnecessary war has severe consequences for everyone in close geographical proximity to the war. No sane and right-thinking Caribbean leader should support Trump’s illegal war against Venezuela.

To avoid an extreme scenario like the potential collapse of CARICOM, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) must stand united in its categorical condemnation of Trump’s illegal war against Venezuela under the guise of combating “drug trafficking”. Today it will be Venezuela, and the next day it will be any other Caribbean country. All the Trump administration will have to do is simply manufacture a national security threat- like, for instance, a “communist threat” from those countries who have close ties with China, or a “human trafficking threat” like they did earlier this year against Cuba in an attempt to end the Cuban medical programme – a medical diplomacy that stretches across 40 countries and 5 continents that has also been crucial in provided much-needed medical assistance to so many countries including Caribbean states. We must say no to war in our region — a zone of peace.

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