Because I am no operative briefed in international intelligence, and because I sit behind a computer screen armed with nothing more than finger strokes of argument, discourse, observation and imagination, I freely admit that I do not possess classified files or insider knowledge. What I do possess are eyes to see, ears to hear and what I jokingly call my ancestral spidey feels. Sometimes history whispers long before it ever shouts.
I am no Aunty Starr. My family does not belong to Trinidad and Tobagoโs so-called one percent, and no State of Emergency or Preventive Detention Order is waiting to ricochet through my private conversations because someone in authority decides my opinions amount to a national threat. I am simply another citizen watching, listening and perhaps connecting dots that should never be connected or perhaps they should.
Then appears this polished digital production from the United States Embassy, fronted by the smooth-talking gentleman in the Texas hat. To my eyes, it feels like an expertly manufactured digital sales pitch, delivered with the confidence of someone convinced the audience has already bought into what is being sold.
Watch America in Action
Maybe, as you watch this video, you will see America in all its glory donned in its Texas hat, speaking with confidence and promising greatness to good ole Trinidad and Tobago. Watch closely, because what one person may receive as diplomacy, another may recognize as a sales presentation for interests far larger than the words being spoken.
Snake Oil, Diplomacy, Strategic Partnership or Economic Opportunity?
Choose whichever description makes you comfortable. My question remains exactly the same:
โWho is buying what is being sold?โ
Thank God history leaves receipts. There are books, archives, declassified documents, investigative journalists and whistleblowers reminding us that powerful nations have, throughout history, advanced their interests far beyond their own borders. Haiti knows. Latin America knows. Former colonies know. Entire governments have learned that foreign influence rarely introduces itself wearing a badge labelledย control. It arrives as investment, development, security, infrastructure and partnership. Those words have often sounded noble until history wrote the next chapter.
This is not to declare that every foreign investment is an act of invasion or that every international partnership conceals a sinister design. It is to recognize that powerful nations do not ordinarily deploy their money, infrastructure, technology, diplomatic influence and strategic interests merely out of generosity. They pursue national interests. Trinidad and Tobago should be equally vigilant about identifying and defending ours.
We Barely Have Reliable Water, But We Have Great Ambitions for Data
We barely have reliable running water, yet we seem to have an abundance of enthusiasm for data centres. Data centres for whom? Data owned by whom? Data protected for whose interests? These are not small questions when data has become one of the most powerful currencies in the world. Before the ceremonial shovels break the soil and the smiling photographs are distributed, citizens deserve to understand what is being built, who will own it, who will govern it, what information it may hold and what Trinidad and Tobago ultimately gains beyond the announcement.
Then come the promises of steel plants, international food chains and expanding American investment, all wrapped in the language of opportunity. Perhaps it truly is opportunity. Perhaps these projects will produce jobs, build capacity and return dormant industries to productive use. Or perhaps history teaches us that weakened leadership and divided societies have often become fertile ground for stronger nations pursuing their own economic and strategic interests.
Look, America is bringing data centres. America is bringing steel plants. America is bringing food chains. They are really doing us a favour, because apparently we are now so impoverished in imagination, planning and national confidence that our own leadership appears more eager to advertise what America will bring than to explain what Trinidad and Tobago will own.
While the country is incited into divisions of race, class, party and perceived privilege, who is watching the larger movement of capital, influence and infrastructure? Division has long been one of the oldest political playbooks in history. Keep the people quarrelling among themselves while the terms governing their future are being negotiated elsewhere.
How Convenient
Another thought keeps tugging at me: how convenient that America appoints an ambassador with Trinidadian roots. Perhaps it is coincidence. Perhaps it is simply excellent diplomacy. Perhaps it is strategic familiarity wrapped in cultural recognition. I genuinely do not know, and I make no claim that I do. But surely asking the question is not the same as declaring the answer.
