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Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with oth­er Caribbean na­tions, is be­ing warned of the dan­gers posed fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ re­moval of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro—an op­er­a­tion Wash­ing­ton has framed as the ex­e­cu­tion of an ar­rest war­rant linked to al­leged nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

The warn­ing fol­lows Maduro’s ar­raign­ment in a New York City court yes­ter­day, where he and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, plead­ed not guilty to drug and weapons charges. Their court ap­pear­ance came days af­ter their dra­mat­ic re­moval from Cara­cas on Sat­ur­day, in a Unit­ed States-led op­er­a­tion that has sent shock­waves across the Caribbean and raised ques­tions about the le­gal­i­ty and con­se­quences of such uni­lat­er­al ac­tion.

As re­gion­al gov­ern­ments weigh the im­pli­ca­tions, an­a­lysts are warn­ing the move could desta­bilise the Caribbean and set a trou­bling prece­dent un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law.