In May 2024, Trinidad and To­ba­go joined 141 oth­er coun­tries in for­mal­ly recog­nis­ing the State of Pales­tine, while ex­press­ing sup­port for a two-state so­lu­tion and the le­git­i­mate as­pi­ra­tions of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple.

That move aligned with the Cari­com con­sen­sus and with the ma­jor­i­ty of Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) mem­ber states. It al­so re­in­forced a long­stand­ing pref­er­ence for ne­go­ti­at­ed set­tle­ments and re­spect for sov­er­eign­ty over uni­lat­er­al mil­i­tary ac­tion.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has a long his­to­ry of prin­ci­pled sup­port for the right of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. The Gov­ern­ment’s con­sis­tent po­si­tion is that a two-state so­lu­tion is the on­ly way out of the on­go­ing cy­cle of vi­o­lence.

“This is our con­sis­tent for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tion, which is found­ed on Tri­ni­dad and To­ba­go’s re­spect for and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law and to the prin­ci­ples of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions,” the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs had said at the time in an­nounc­ing the de­ci­sion.

Back then, T&T was care­ful in ar­tic­u­lat­ing its po­si­tion on this is­sue. While con­demn­ing the killing of civil­ians in Gaza and Is­rael, it ex­pressed strong sup­port for the two-state so­lu­tion and called for an im­me­di­ate cease­fire.

Fast for­ward to last Sat­ur­day, when the Unit­ed States and Is­rael launched co­or­di­nat­ed strikes against Iran, mark­ing one of the most sig­nif­i­cant es­ca­la­tions in Mid­dle East­ern ten­sions in years. In the im­me­di­ate af­ter­math, the T&T Gov­ern­ment is­sued a state­ment sup­port­ing the US-led strikes, fram­ing them as nec­es­sary to pre­vent nu­clear pro­lif­er­a­tion and safe­guard in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Such en­dorse­ment is not on­ly rare for small de­vel­op­ing states, but it al­so sig­nalled a clear align­ment with Wash­ing­ton.

It was al­so at vari­ance with T&T’s tra­di­tion­al for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tion on con­flicts in the Mid­dle East, which has re­flect­ed cau­tious prag­ma­tism and strong ad­her­ence to UN frame­works.

The Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion has there­fore found it­self nav­i­gat­ing a del­i­cate diplo­mat­ic mo­ment fol­low­ing the US–Is­rael mil­i­tary of­fen­sive against Iran.

In fact, this might ex­plain the diplo­mat­ic “flip-flop­ping” that was clear­ly vis­i­ble on Sat­ur­day, as the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs is­sued not one, but two state­ments on the US-led of­fen­sive. In the first state­ment, is­sued around 4 pm, T&T pledged sup­port not on­ly to the US, but al­so to its US al­lies in the strikes on Iran. How­ev­er, this was soon re­tract­ed, mak­ing clear T&T’s sup­port for the US alone, which was not to be con­fused with any sup­port for Is­rael.

With hun­dreds killed so far in the strikes, the sec­ond state­ment is­sued af­ter 8 pm on Sat­ur­day al­so ex­pressed sym­pa­thy for the loss of life due to events oc­cur­ring in the Mid­dle East and reaf­firmed T&T’s sup­port for the peace­ful ex­is­tence for all peo­ple.

In light of these de­vel­op­ments, the lo­cal Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, com­pris­ing rough­ly ten per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, has ap­pealed for di­a­logue to ease what it de­scribes as the grow­ing dis­com­fort with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Key mem­bers of the po­lit­i­cal op­po­si­tion have al­so tak­en is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach, say­ing it does not re­flect the will of the peo­ple and have al­so warned of po­ten­tial fall­out.

With this lat­est test of diplo­ma­cy, two im­por­tant ques­tions have to be asked and an­swered: Can T&T main­tain cred­i­bil­i­ty as a prin­ci­pled ad­vo­cate of in­ter­na­tion­al law while ap­pear­ing to en­dorse pre-emp­tive mil­i­tary ac­tion? And can it bal­ance strate­gic ties with the US against its non-aligned tra­di­tion and its re­la­tion­ships with­in the Glob­al South?

Time will tell!