Can CARICOM Hedge Against American Unilateralism?
The great powers’ current revival of a spheres of influence-based international order, coming at the expense of (once) U.S.-led liberal internationalism, is being closely watched by Caribbean leaders.
A subset of these leaders — i.e. Heads of Government of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) — just recently met on this matter, although they have not yet made their assessment of that system-impacting development explicit.
The seven so-called Protocol Members of the OECS bloc are also full members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which is widely “revered” for its longevity.
A key takeaway from this high-level meeting held in Saint Lucia on January 13 is that OECS leaders called for greater attention within their ranks to “the dynamic and rapidly evolving geopolitical environment.” The terminology ‘geopolitical environment’ is a euphemism for spheres of influence, which refers to “a geographic area where countries, usually leading world powers, exercise military, political, economic, and cultural influence over lesser powers.”
Most notably, leaders of the sub-regional OECS bloc that comprises 12 members “agreed to convene in political caucus as frequently as required to ensure coordinated and responsive decision-making and reaffirmed their commitment to collective action, regional solidarity, and continued principled and practical engagement with the international community, including the United States, in safeguarding the security, stability, and sustainable development of the OECS.”
Unfavourable Prevailing Foreign Policy Conditions
The advent of the “Donroe Doctrine,” which has ushered in a return to the U.S. interventionist streak of the Cold War era and days of old in America’s dealings with Latin America and the Caribbean, is top of mind for these small states — for whom a Melian Dialogue-styled ‘might makes right’ form of international relations is injurious to the national interest. (The doctrine is also a shot across the bow in respect of China, which deems large parts of the Indo-Pacific to be its sphere of influence. As the third ‘China Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean’ sets out, Beijing is also competitively pursuing its interests in what some scholars refer to as ‘America’s backyard’.)
This doctrine ostensibly lends itself to U.S. relations qua grand bargains with other great powers. It caters to what in international politics — according to a prominent school of thought in the discipline of International Relations — amounts to the “exercise [of] authority over one another in international hierarchies.”
Insofar as its logic of intervention is strong, the doctrine opens the door to Washington’s foreign policy-related non-adherence (not for the first time) to the foundational principle of the United Nations (UN) Charter: the sovereign equality of states.
The UN Charter conceives of equal rights and duties for all of this world body’s members — irrespective of size or power. In this way, inter alia, territorial integrity and political independence are held up as sacrosanct by the international community.
By extension, such principles as non-interference in domestic affairs and the prohibition on the use of force are held in the highest regard. Such considerations hinge on the inherent affirmation in the Charter that all states are equal under international law and that they ought to be afforded respect and legal standing in the community of nations accordingly.
Taken together, the associated institutions and international relations-related rules of the road stand as a bulwark against the logic of spheres of influence. Throughout history, by shifting the levers of geopolitics, major powers have wielded this logic to serve their respective interests. More often than not, the results have been detrimental to smaller states caught in the crossfire (e.g. the unintended consequences of foreign policy action) or that have found themselves in the cross hairs.
This is why CARICOM’s reaction — with some exceptions [refer to my January 14, 2026 article for the Jamaica Gleaner] — both to ‘Operation Southern Spear’ and ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ is a telling foreign policy-related moment, all things considered. It illustrates the degree to which the aforesaid principles of UN-anchored multilateralism matter to the bloc, even as they fell from favour in Washington.
Washington waged both of these campaigns amid larger questions about their deleterious effects on the UN Charter and, relatedly, the extent to which they signify the return of the American ‘big stick’ in Washington’s relations with Latin American and Caribbean states.
This gives rise to concern among leaders in the Caribbean who took comfort in the knowledge that, just over a decade ago, the then-U.S. President Barack Obama cast aside “[t]he days of empire and spheres of influence.”
These leaders are now watching U.S. President Donald Trump pitch “sharing the globe with other great powers.” Their muted reaction is par for the course, even as they dedicate more time to and invest more political capital in respect of directly addressing significant matters arising.
This executive branch-level development is consistent with these leaders’ growing concern that international politics’ re-emergent spheres of influence character risks supplanting processes of international cooperation and multilateralism, which have historically worked in their countries’ favour in the realm of foreign policy. Consider that CARICOM Secretary General Carla Barnett has previously expressed concern about the international order “being disrupted by divisive and challenging geopolitical issues, global conflicts, and threats to multilateralism.”
Trump’s ‘Big Stick’
One year on since the start of Trump’s second term, each of these leaders has come to terms with how their respective governments will walk a tightrope between Trumpian spheres of influence-related diktat and their countries’ place in the international order on their own terms.
These leaders are painfully aware that Trump’s ‘America First’ worldview is advanced via one of the two facets — or a combination thereof — of the stratagem under reference, as follows: (i) transactionalist, pressure-bound deal-making at every turn — with a penchant for threatening the use of U.S. tariffs on imports from third countries or applying such levies outright; and (ii) confrontation that leverages the U.S. military, including up to the threshold of hard power threat or brinkmanship.
This playbook draws heavily from both the foreign policy-related moorings of the presidency of William Taft and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. In their time, both of these foreign policy approaches were undeniably fraught with the logic of intervention.
The Trump administration’s roll-out of the “Donroe Doctrine” suggests that CARICOM member states’ sovereignty-related gains face their toughest test yet from a U.S. administration. These circumstances are having a knock-on effect on regional unity.
For CARICOM, there is the rub.
It is no surprise that in the wake of the U.S.’s recent show of force in Venezuela — which (owing to its success) is a coming-out party for the “Donroe Doctrine” — OECS leaders agreed that the politics of regionalism to follow will embrace the aforementioned high-profile consultative course of action.
This approach will no doubt redound to the benefit of the OECS, whose leaders — by and large — think much the same on the matter of the contemporary American power problématique. Moreover, they draw from a shared, bloc-level belief in a standard foreign policy playbook vis-à-vis Trump 2.0’s take on American power and their respective countries’ responses to the same.
At the CARICOM level, insofar as two competing camps therein obtain on how to engage with Washington at this geopolitical juncture [refer to my January 8, 2026 article for the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian], the current era of American power presents a different calculation. Depending on the said camps, the international political outcomes that flow from Trump’s ‘big stick’ are (and — should efforts to address the breach in question within CARICOM fall short — will continue to be) received differently.
This will deeply shape not just CARICOM unity, but the very nature of the bloc itself going forward. As Trinidadian journalist Wesley Gibbings rightly points out, in an incisive January 7, 2026 article for the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, “the critical point to monitor would be the extent to which CARICOM’s sometimes faltering foreign policy ‘pillar’ teeters and destabilises other key structures.”
International Relations-related Destinies
More broadly though, and as the historical record shows, the post-independence history of the 14 post-colonial CARICOM member states’ international relations is such that differences in foreign policy-related approaches and a plurality of viewpoints are hardly atypical of them. This is a testament to the fact that the politics driving the CARICOM bloc’s conduct of international relations are not static, nor can they be, as domestic and international conditions vary at any moment.
Indeed, to the degree that they may be generative of differing interests, the bloc has an apparatus in place to “establish measures to co-ordinate the foreign policies of the Member States of the Community.” (According to some CARICOM insiders, whether it is functioning as envisioned is an open question.)
And yet, in this moment, it is almost as if the bloc has to revisit certain first principles — especially as they relate to tying ideas around the bloc’s collective conduct of international relations to narratives of progress in that regard. Case in point: the explicit normative line that the regional grouping has traditionally taken to back the achievement of change qua progress in international relations through peace rather than through war has seemingly come undone.
This line ought not to be constrained by or deemed to be secondary to patterns of international or domestic politics. These states have arguably long been at the forefront of normative thought in the UN and other international organizations that pushes back against capricious actions in that regard.
Put differently, over time, it ought not to be contextually specific.
If any doctrinal thread is at work in the CARICOM bloc’s conduct of international relations, it is that of the sovereign equality of states and the attendant norms outlined above. As noted, such norms are ensconced in the UN Charter.
A deep commitment to and belief in the inviolability of such a narrative ought to always get top billing in foreign policy-related positioning. (Nor, relatedly, should appeals to hold up the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace be deemed as magical thinking.) It should be recalled that this logic was at play in recent years, as it has been in years past. Consider that CARICOM issued a full-throated condemnation of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, viewing it as an affront to key UN-related norms and international law.
At the time, recognizing this act of aggression as a spheres of influence-related power play, CARICOM noted: “The hostilities against Ukraine go counter to the principles of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign state and the prohibition on the threat or use of force, and the peaceful resolution of disputes, which are the bedrock of this Community.”
CARICOM took this principled stand unreservedly — while also not losing sight of Russia’s geopolitical gambit to gain a spheres of influence-related edge in its so-called ‘near abroad’ vis-à-vis its great-power matchup with the United States.
In the Western Hemisphere, as evidenced by the broader outlines of “U.S. oversight of Venezuela,” Trump’s America is also a determined hegemon. Yet today’s U.S. policy in the Caribbean — for instance — is not new; nor are its motivations. The following reflections of a then-senior U.S. naval officer — published in 1941 — capture well this point: “But with the acquisition of our new bases the picture changes and once more the opportunity is ours to make the Caribbean an American lake — not a closed sea, but an open highway with the United States Navy in charge of all the traffic lights on this particular corner of world trade.”
Instructively, the title of these reflections is ‘The Caribbean — An American Lake’. This document’s account of the Caribbean in the scheme of things helps to bring home the gravity of the current geopolitical moment, which — for many a leader in CARICOM — the U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean since September 2025 has come to symbolize.
For now, across a spectrum of foreign policy-related asks qua demands — without exception — all CARICOM member states are under continuous and mounting pressure from Washington. In light of the U.S. stance, they are girding themselves for more of the same to come.
Within the CARICOM fold, adjustments are also being made regarding long-standing relations with U.S. adversaries. Relations with Cuba, which has long been a close ally of Venezuela, come to mind.
The Trump administration has been gunning for Cuba, doubling down on this stance since its recent coup de force in Venezuela. This operation, marking the definitive return of American interventionism in the Western Hemisphere, may well preview the way Washington treats with what it assesses are ‘troublemakers’. That does not augur well for the rules of the road under reference.
Trump’s Venezuela gambit has already run roughshod over such rules, bringing pressure to bear on CARICOM member states in other respects. This has been the case from the get-go and as it has gone through various permutations. Of note, CARICOM member states’ respective reactions to that gambit have seemingly become a litmus test for how Washington treats with each of them bilaterally regarding a menu of issues.
Such is the state of affairs of U.S. policy toward the Caribbean.
Still, OECS leaders are hailing their latest meeting. In this uncertain time, it as an important step forward in efforts to advance their respective countries’ international relations-related destinies.
Its outcomes are sure to help inform another regional summit — the Fiftieth Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government. At this summit, which will be held in St. Kitts and Nevis from February 24th to 27th, regional leaders will (in part) deliberate on weighty matters of foreign policy touched on in the foregoing analysis.
With this summit on the horizon, its chairman — Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis Terrance Drew — has gone to great lengths to urge the bloc’s leaders to address their differences regarding certain recent international developments “constructively, internally, and with the shared understanding that our collective strength is greater than any single issue before us.”
What former Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves calls the “Trumpian new world order” will loom large in summit-level deliberations to come, begging the question: Will this summit lay the groundwork for CARICOM to hedge against the “Donroe Doctrine” and this era of American unilateralism?
The answer lies in how CARICOM leaders broach the subject of regional unity (which has taken a hit) with each other in this high-stakes geopolitical moment, which forms the backdrop for their upcoming summit. It will surely go a long way toward laying out that answer.
Nand C. Bardouille, Ph.D., is the manager of The Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean in the Institute of International Relations at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) St. Augustine Campus, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The views expressed here are his own.
This article was first published by the Jamaica Gleaner on January 19, 2026.