As Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar heads to the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and To­ba­go finds it­self at a defin­ing mo­ment in its re­gion­al jour­ney. The theme “Be­yond Words: Ac­tion To­day for a Thriv­ing, Sus­tain­able Cari­com,” must mark a recom­mit­ment to uni­ty at a time when uni­ty is un­der strain.

The meet­ing brings to­geth­er lead­ers grap­pling with an in­creas­ing­ly tur­bu­lent geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment. The pres­ence of se­nior US of­fi­cials, Sau­di Ara­bia’s Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs, and the pres­i­dent of the African Ex­port-Im­port Bank un­der­scores the in­tense glob­al en­gage­ment of the Caribbean. Small states are no longer pe­riph­er­al; they are now are­nas in which com­pet­ing vi­sions of in­ter­na­tion­al or­der are be­ing played out.

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the stakes are par­tic­u­lar­ly high. In re­cent months, Port-of-Spain’s sup­port for US mil­i­tary ac­tion against al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ers and its back­ing of in­ter­ven­tion­ist ap­proach­es in Venezuela have ex­posed fault lines with­in Cari­com. His­tor­i­cal­ly, the bloc has leaned on mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and a rules-based in­ter­na­tion­al or­der as a shield for small states.

To­day, that con­sen­sus is fray­ing.

One camp with­in Cari­com con­tin­ues to em­pha­sise col­lec­tive diplo­ma­cy and re­sis­tance to hard pow­er. An­oth­er, in­to which Trinidad and To­ba­go now more square­ly fits, has sig­nalled a will­ing­ness to align more open­ly with US se­cu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ties. The di­ver­gence has test­ed the bloc’s co­her­ence and un­set­tled a for­eign pol­i­cy tra­di­tion that dates back to the ear­ly post-in­de­pen­dence years.

Yet, the sum­mit in Bas­seterre of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­cal­i­bra­tion rather than rup­ture.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent “pro­duc­tive” talks with St Kitts leader Dr Ter­rence Drew, the cur­rent chair­man of Cari­com, sug­gest that di­a­logue can tem­per dis­agree­ment. Drew’s call for man­ag­ing re­gion­al con­ver­sa­tions “with care, mu­tu­al re­spect and a res­olute sense of re­gion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty” could not be time­li­er. If Cari­com is to with­stand the cur­rent hard-pow­er turn in in­ter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics, it must first re­pair trust with­in its own ranks.

The true test for Trinidad and To­ba­go is whether it can har­monise its US en­gage­ment with a reaf­firmed com­mit­ment to Cari­com’s mul­ti­lat­er­al ethos. The rules-based or­der—an­chored in in­ter­na­tion­al law rather than force—re­mains the Caribbean’s strongest de­fence against mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion. Any ap­proach that nor­malis­es might-is-right diplo­ma­cy risks shrink­ing the space with­in which small states ma­noeu­vre.

This sum­mit al­so car­ries do­mes­tic res­o­nance. Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s in­clu­sion in the del­e­ga­tion sig­nals an ap­pre­ci­a­tion that re­gion­al gov­er­nance mod­els, such as the fed­er­al struc­ture of St Kitts and Nevis, may in­form To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my as­pi­ra­tions. Re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion is not an ab­stract ide­al; it can yield prac­ti­cal lessons for con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form at home.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the 50th sum­mit con­venes at an in­flex­ion point. Cari­com must de­cide whether it will frag­ment un­der the weight of geopo­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry or forge a re­newed com­pact ground­ed in shared prin­ci­ples and prag­mat­ic co­op­er­a­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go, as one of the bloc’s larg­er economies and most in­flu­en­tial voic­es, bears spe­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Hope lies in ac­tion—mea­sured, re­spect­ful, and col­lab­o­ra­tive. If Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar us­es this fo­rum to bridge di­vides, reaf­firm com­mit­ment to mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, and align na­tion­al in­ter­ests with re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, the out­come could be a stronger Cari­com and a more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Be­yond Words” must in­deed mean ac­tion. And that ac­tion should be­gin with re­build­ing the trust that has long been the Caribbean’s great­est strate­gic as­set.