Institute For Social Development

IS THE PRIME MINISTER OF TRINIDAD RIGHT AND OTHERS OUT OF TOUCH.
The recent election in Tobago has sent a powerful and unexpected signal across the Caribbean. In a decisive outcome, the governing party of Trinidad and Tobago, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, swept every seat in Tobago, defeating the long-dominant opposition PNM on its traditional stronghold.

This result has not only reshaped Tobago’s political landscape but has also muted a chorus of critics across the region—particularly among left-leaning commentators, including voices in Jamaica—who had accused the Prime Minister of betrayal, intolerance, or even racial bias. The people on the ground, however, told a very different story at the ballot box.

For months, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has faced intense criticism for a series of policy positions taken amid growing regional instability. Nowhere is this instability more pronounced than in neighbouring Venezuela, whose ongoing crisis has driven a steady influx of migrants into Trinidad and Tobago. Alongside this humanitarian challenge has come a sharp rise in transnational crime, drug trafficking, and gang violence—trends the Prime Minister has openly acknowledged and warned about.

Her assertion that Trinidad is being inundated with drugs, fuelling an alarming murder rate and straining public services, has been dismissed by some regional critics as fear-mongering or populist rhetoric. Yet the Tobago election result suggests that many citizens see her stance not as divisive, but as realistic.

Equally controversial was Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to cooperate with the United States by allowing the use of its airspace or airport facilities as part of broader regional security arrangements. In online discourse, this move was framed by critics as capitulation to foreign interests.

However, voters in Tobago—an island that is majority Black and often invoked symbolically by those same critics—delivered a landslide endorsement of the Prime Minister’s party. In doing so, they undermined the narrative that her policies are rooted in racial animus or elite detachment.

Elections are, at their core, judgments on performance and trust. The fact that Persad-Bissessar’s party not only secured power in Trinidad but went on to win emphatically in Tobago indicates genuine popular support rather than manufactured consent. Tobago’s voters were not oblivious to regional commentary; they simply weighed it against their lived experience. Their choice suggests a prioritisation of security, border control, and effective governance over ideological posturing.

The broader implication is uncomfortable for many commentators across the Caribbean. It raises the possibility that sections of the regional intelligentsia and social media class are out of sync with public sentiment. While rhetoric about solidarity, identity, and moral positioning resonates online, voters appear more concerned with tangible outcomes: reduced crime, controlled borders, and governments willing to make difficult decisions in uncertain times.

These are complex questions with no easy answers. But Tobago’s election result is clear evidence that many Caribbean citizens are demanding action and performance, not slogans. In that sense, the Prime Minister of Trinidad may not be isolated or wrong. It may be that others—loud, confident, and far removed from the pressures of daily life—are simply out of touch with the reality on the ground.

Much has been made of Jamaica’s inclusion on the list of countries affected by the United States’ decision to pause the issuance of certain visas under President Donald Trump. Predictably, the announcement has triggered speculation, anxiety, and a wave of derision—particularly from liberal and left-leaning commentators—toward Jamaica’s pragmatic and measured approach to maintaining a functional relationship with Washington. Yet much of this commentary reveals less insight than emotion, and more ideology than historical understanding.

The central lesson is a simple one: this is not the world’s first encounter with Donald Trump. During his initial term, Trump made abundantly clear the kind of leadership he brings to international relations—transactional, interest-driven, and largely indifferent to sentimentality or historical goodwill. Any country with a serious grasp of recent history would have learned how to engage such a leader: not through moral grandstanding or public outrage, but through realism, preparation, and strategic restraint.

Indeed, even America’s closest allies—countries bound by shared values, longstanding friendships, and deep institutional ties—have discovered that under Trump, no relationship is immune from recalibration. Canada and major European partners have learned, sometimes painfully, that alliances once assumed to be permanent can no longer be taken for granted. In this context, it would be naïve to believe that Jamaica, a small developing state, could somehow insulate itself from these global shifts through rhetoric alone.

Under Trump, American foreign policy is unapologetically transactional. Power is exercised openly, leverage is used bluntly, and decisions are framed less around diplomacy than around perceived national advantage. A pragmatic observer would therefore neither be shocked nor indignant at the visa pause. What is truly laughable, however, is the daily spectacle of ideological hand-wringing—commentary that offers outrage in place of analysis and slogans instead of strategy.

Two concrete factors help explain Jamaica’s inclusion on the list. The first is well documented: visa overstay rates. Data consistently show that Jamaicans who travel to the United States are among those most likely to overstay their visas. While this reality is uncomfortable, it is not imaginary, nor is it uniquely Jamaican. From the perspective of a Trump administration focused on immigration control, such statistics inevitably carry weight, regardless of diplomatic niceties.

The second, and arguably more significant factor, is Jamaica’s evolving relationship with China. Over the past decade, China has become a visible and influential partner in Jamaica’s development—financing and constructing highways, rehabilitating road networks, expanding housing stock, and now proposing to revive the island’s long-dormant railway system. These projects are not abstract symbols; they represent real infrastructure, real growth, and real alternatives in a world where capital is fiercely competitive.

What is often left unsaid is that many of the countries facing similar visa pauses share a common feature: a substantial Chinese presence in their development landscape. As the United States finds itself increasingly sidelined in major infrastructure projects across the Global South, it has responded not only with rhetoric but with pressure. In this light, the visa pause appears less as an isolated immigration measure and more as a signal—an assertion of influence in an era of intensifying geopolitical competition.

The appropriate response for Jamaica is neither panic nor posturing. Rather, it is to stay the course: to continue diversifying its trading relationships, expanding its economic partnerships, and building an economy resilient enough to give Jamaicans genuine reasons to remain at home. A peaceful, prosperous, and opportunity-rich Jamaica is the most effective long-term answer to migration pressures and external leverage alike.

In a world defined by shifting power and hard choices, realism—not sentiment—is the currency of survival. Jamaica would do well to remember that.