Trinidad and Tobago will give the United States access to its territory if Washington seeks to defend neighboring Guyana against any attack or invasion by Venezuela, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said on Saturday, underscoring her government’s support for the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean.
Persad-Bissessar said no such request has been made, but stated, “I want to make it very clear that if the Maduro regime launches any attack against the Guyanese people or invades Guyanese territory and a request is made by the American Government for access to Trinidadian territory to defend the people of Guyana, my government will unflinchingly provide them that access.”
Venezuela’s military has intercepted oil-related vessels operating in Guyana’s territory on multiple occasions, as it sabre-rattles for Guyana’s Essequibo region. President Nicolás Maduro claims non-recognition of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Guyana has filed a case to resolve the controversy.
The case centers on the 1899 Arbitral Award, which legally determined the boundary between the two countries. Venezuela, after accepting the boundary for decades, declared the award null and void in 1962 and has since claimed over two-thirds of Guyana’s territory in the Essequibo region. Guyana initiated legal proceedings at the ICJ in 2018, following UN Secretary General António Guterres’ determination that judicial settlement was the best path forward. The ICJ subsequently ruled it had jurisdiction over the case in 2020, rejecting Venezuela’s objections.
Venezuela continues to participate in the court proceedings at every turn, and a ruling could come as early as 2026 after another round of oral hearings.
While the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has always stood with Guyana in the row against Venezuela, the new Trinidad administration is taking a noticeably bolder stance in support of Guyana.
Earlier this year, Persad-Bissessar threatened to use “deadly force” against any unidentified vessels entering Trinidad’s waters from Venezuela. The Bolivarian Republic’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello had said in June that foreign actors are being trained to destabilize Venezuela, with illegal weapons being smuggled in from Trinidad and Tobago. Persad-Bissessar warned that Venezuela has made such “propaganda” comments about its neighbors Guyana and Colombia whenever it was dealing with its own internal political problems.
The Trinidad PM’s new statement comes as the U.S. government deploys military assets in the Caribbean region to combat terrorist drug cartels.
“The only persons who should be worried about the activity of the U.S. military are those engaged in or enabling criminal activity. Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said Trinidad and Tobago fully supports Washington’s deployment of military assets in the region to combat transnational drug cartels, citing record murder rates, gang violence and narcotics trafficking in the twin-island nation and across the Caribbean.
She dismissed criticism that the deployment undermines the Caribbean’s characterization as a “zone of peace”, arguing that criminal networks had embedded themselves into politics, security and economic life, leaving small states unable to cope.
“Small island states like ours simply do not have the financial and military resources to take on the drug cartels,” she said, adding that U.S. forces were operating legally in international waters. She stressed that Trinidad and Tobago had not discussed the matter with CARICOM and had “no intention” of doing so, saying each member state could speak for itself.
Guyana on Friday pledged its support for having a collaborative regional approach to tackling transnational crime and narco-terrorism.
Persad-Bissessar also said that no request had ever been made by Washington to use Trinidadian territory for operations against Venezuela. She said relations with the Venezuelan people remain good and “will continue”.
