Trinidad and Tobago went all in with the US – it will prove a costly misjudgment

Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, meets US secretary of state Marco Rubio last September in Washington. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

There is a saying in Trinidad and Tobago: “Cockroach should stay out of fowl business.” It captures a hard truth. Small states that stray into great-power conflicts rarely emerge unscathed. They are not players; they are expendables.

It’s a statement that frames the reality of where Trinidad and Tobago sits uneasily today.