A U.S. military strike on a fishing boat off the coast of Micoud, St. Lucia last year left several fishermen dead and the community devastated. This was not an isolated incident. The Trump administration has emphasized the Caribbean as part of its broader focus on security in the Western Hemisphere.
In response, U.S. strikes over the last year on boats Washington alleges are trafficking drugs have killed dozens in Caribbean waters. These military operations, along with sweeping trade policy changes and intensifying great-power competition are reshaping stability and sovereignty in the region.
Indeed, U.S. military strikes in Caribbean waters are signaling a change in the United States’s posture toward the region. This was central to the discussion during a Global South Policy Hub roundtable in March, which brought together experts from the Caribbean and congressional staffers to explore the implications of evolving U.S. engagement in the region.
“It is the posture and tone of diplomacy that has changed [more than foreign policy],” said Kai-Ann Skeete, a nonresident fellow at the Global South Policy Hub. This distinction framed much of the discussion that followed.
Caught in the Crossfire
Fisherfolk have stopped going out to sea in the Caribbean out of fear that they could be caught in a U.S. military operation. For communities that depend on fishing as a primary livelihood, this compounds pre-existing economic pressures in the region according to Nonresident Fellow Annita Montoute.
The gap between policy intent and ground-level impact is eroding public trust across the region, with costs overwhelmingly being borne by ordinary Caribbean citizens. Left unaddressed, this erosion of trust undermines the United States’s ability to maintain influence in a region it considers strategically vital.
Penalizing a Partner
The economic relationship tells the same story. The United States has a significant trade surplus with the Caribbean, and the region is a net purchaser of U.S. goods. Yet recent U.S. trade and remittance policies are penalizing a partner that did not create the problems those policies are designed to address.
“The Caribbean is not an economic threat to the U.S.,” said Nonresident Fellow Alicia Nicholls.
The end of de minimis treatment — which previously exempted duties on small imports — has hit Caribbean artisans hard, cutting off access to U.S. consumers who previously bought their goods online. New visa fees are also discouraging Caribbean travelers, who spend money on U.S. airlines, restaurants, hotels, and businesses, from visiting the United States.
Not Passive, Not Ideological
This penalization is pushing Caribbean firms toward non-U.S. suppliers and accelerating Chinese commercial influence in Washington’s own neighborhood, though experts at the Global South Policy Hub’s roundtable pushed back on reading that as a signal of ideological or political support. “The Caribbean is not totally passive in this whole scenario,” Montoute said.
Caribbean states are not turning toward China and other nontraditional partners out of ideological sympathy — they are going where development support is available. “At the end of the day, it is who is going to help me achieve my goals?” Skeete argued. Nicholls referred to this strategy as asymmetric multi-alignment: maintaining relationships of varying depths with multiple partners and going where support is available.
While the United States remains an important partner for the Caribbean, it is no longer the only option, and Caribbean states are leveraging their position. This is not a signal that the region is turning from its U.S. partnership. Instead, it is an invitation for Washington to show up differently.
“Instead of using big stick policies, work productively with countries,” Nicholls said. “Open dialogue — not with a big stick, but that respects sovereignty and mutual benefits.”
CARICOM Fracturing
That invitation extends to how the United States engages Caribbean institutions. CARICOM, an intergovernmental political and economic union of 15 Caribbean states, is under unprecedented pressure with leaders openly questioning whether a collective foreign policy approach is best — a fracture that U.S. bilateral engagement is accelerating.
Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago were the only two CARICOM countries present at the Shield of the Americas summit, which launched a U.S.-led initiative on anti-cartel measures and regional security. The rest of the bloc’s absence was conspicuous.
Montoute argued that engaging CARICOM as an institution, rather than pursuing bilateral deals with individual member states, would more effectively advance U.S. interests than the current bilateral approach. A divided CARICOM weakens a natural partner bloc for the United States at a moment when Washington needs reliable allies in the region.
Cuba is a Regional Problem
Cuba illustrates what is at stake when coercion supersedes dialogue. What happens in Cuba does not stay between Washington and Havana. Nicholls notes that a forced regime change “would most likely produce a failed state” rather than a stable democratic transition. This would have cascading consequences for the entire region, including increased migration flowing north toward the United States, regional instability, and the erosion of Cuban medical programs that Caribbean communities depend on.
“Cuban medical brigades, scholarships, and training have also played a vital role in supporting overstretched health systems,” Montoute said. “In my own small community, I know at least four young people who studied medicine in Cuba.”
That kind of medical cooperation, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, built genuine goodwill across the region that governments have not forgotten. Stability in Cuba is a Caribbean interest as much as a Cuban one. Montoute emphasized that dialogue with Cuba is both possible and necessary for the United States and should be pursued before any destabilizing action is considered.
One message was consistent throughout the roundtable: Caribbean states remain open and willing partners. The signal to Washington that the region has options is not a threat. It is an opportunity. A U.S. approach grounded in respect for sovereignty, multilateral engagement with CARICOM, and genuine partnership would find the Caribbean ready to reciprocate. The ball is now in Washington’s court.
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