Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has is­sued a sharp warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go risks putting its econ­o­my un­der se­vere strain if ten­sions with CARI­COM con­tin­ue, claim­ing the coun­try could lose ac­cess to rough­ly $7.5 bil­lion in an­nu­al trade ben­e­fits.

In a state­ment, Beck­les crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing them of poor diplo­ma­cy and what she de­scribed as a pat­tern of con­fronta­tion with re­gion­al part­ners.

She ar­gued that trade with­in CARI­COM re­mains a crit­i­cal pil­lar of the econ­o­my, sup­port­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, ex­porters, small busi­ness­es, and pub­lic ser­vices, and warned any dis­rup­tion could trig­ger wide­spread fall­out across sec­tors.