Caribbean & Central America - August 2026

On 11 June the Trinidad & Tobago parliament approved a three-month extension of the State of Emergency (SoE), which will now run to mid-September. For approximately 10 of the last 14 months the country has been under emergency rule. The business community is in two minds about the measure.

The current SoE was introduced in March this year, after a surge in gang-related criminal violence, particularly in the capital, Port of Spain. Under the constitution, emergency rule gives the government power to arrest and hold suspects without charges for specified periods; conduct searches without a warrant; and the right to restrict freedom of movement or assembly in various parts of the country. During the debate on the extension in June, business groups expressed a range of opinions. The Greater Tunapuna, Greater San Fernando, and Chaguanas chambers of commerce, along with the Supermarkets Association of T&T said that prolonged emergency measures should not be seen as a replacement for a sustainable and long-term anti-crime strategy. Ramon Gregorio of the Tunapuna Chamber said a decision to extend the SoE should be “evidence-based, proportionate, and tied to clear security gains”. Baldath Maharaj of the Chaguanas Chamber requested that the police commissioner should publish SoE achievements to “secure public trust”.

Some progress has clearly been made. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar attributes a 42% fall in the homicide rate last year, down to 369, to the impact of the SoE. As a proportion of the population, this means the murder rate has fallen from 45.7 to 27 per 100,000 inhabitants. The government says it has been targeting criminal networks inside and outside the prison system. A total of 373 suspects have been detained under the current SoE, and public protests have been banned in 15 zones, including one near parliament.

The measures have also triggered deep concern over civil liberties. Pennelope Beckles-Robinson, leader of the opposition Peoples’ National Movement (PNM), says her party may mount a constitutional challenge against the SoE. Thirteen trade unions have objected to the restrictions on public protests. Business groups linked to tourism say SoE-linked travel advisories may reduce the number of annual visitors to the islands.

A high-profile political dispute is not helping to calm the waters. On 23 July the government released from prison Trinidad and Tobago businessman Dominic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve, both of whom had been arrested a month earlier on charges of taking part in a plot to assassinate the prime minister, the attorney general, and other senior government officials. Hadeed, who owns the Blue Waters bottled-water company, and his wife, deny any wrongdoing and say they are victims of government-led political persecution. Crucially, the arrests were made under the SoE powers; the government appears to have released the two after receiving legal advice that the arrest orders would not hold up in court.

There is a risk that political and ethnic polarisation could end up weakening both anti-crime policies and the SoE in particular. The Hadeeds say their detention was retaliation against members of an ethnic minority perceived to support the opposition. Both are members of the powerful Syrian Lebanese business community, sometimes referred to as “the 1%” – a term that refers to the country’s wealthiest individuals. The government receives much of its support from the Indo-Trinidadian community, while the opposition does so from Afro-Trinidadians. Although ethnicity is less of an electoral force than it was in the past, these fault-lines remain significant. Dominic Hadeed says that his public criticism of the state of emergency contributed to his detention.