NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean climate and environmental advocates say the region is once again confronting the enduring architecture of empire, now expressed through renewed militarism, economic coercion, and ecological dispossession.
As global powers escalate wars abroad and reassert dominance closer to home, the advocates said, during a virtual forum on “Fossil Fuels, Finance and the Future of Caribbean Studies: An Unhealthy Conundrum”, that the region continues to be treated not as a community of sovereign peoples under international law, but as a strategic sphere of influence subject to external control.
They said this reality has been sharpened by the reassertion of a modernized Monroe Doctrine, articulated most clearly through the “Trump Corollary”, which openly framed the Caribbean and Latin America as an exclusive zone of the United States’ dominance.
The Monroe Doctrine is a 1823 United States foreign policy declared by President James Monroe, stating that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further European colonization and that any intervention in the Americas, including the Caribbean, would be viewed as a hostile act against the US.
The doctrine established the Americas as a US sphere of influence while promising American non-interference in European affairs.
The “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a United States foreign policy that declares the US’s right to intervene in Latin American and Caribbean affairs to ensure regional stability, prevent mass migration, combat transnational crime, and block non-hemispheric competitors, such as China, from accessing key strategic assets.
Observers say the “Trump Corollary” is a modern, more assertive “America First” reinterpretation of the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary, focusing on regional hegemony and economic security.
“In doing so, it ‘Trump Corollary’ normalized political interference, economic punishment, and the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention enshrined in the United Nations Charter,” Caribbean climate and environmental advocate Martin Felix, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC.
“Within this framework, the accelerating climate crisis and the push to expand fossil fuel production in the Caribbean cannot be understood as policy choices made in good faith but as outcomes of structural coercion,” said the Grenadian-born, Brooklyn, New York-based community advocate.
“The Trump Corollary reinforced the idea that Caribbean sovereignty is conditional and subordinate to US strategic and corporate interests, including the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
“Through sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and development conditionalities, Caribbean states are pushed toward extractive pathways that deepen climate vulnerability and economic dependency, directly contradicting international climate agreements that recognize differentiated responsibility and the right to sustainable development for historically exploited regions.”
Felix said these realities framed the virtual forum, convened by Friends of the Earth Grenada and regional partners.
He said the discussion took place amid the erosion of multilateral climate cooperation and the retreat of major emitting states from their obligations under international environmental law.
“For Small Island Developing States, this retreat is not abstract. It translates into escalating loss and damage, shrinking fiscal space, and mounting threats to territorial integrity, cultural survival, and the right to life.”
He said the gathering was held in “loving memory” of Dr. Winston D. Thomas and Michael “Nanan” Jones, whose lives exemplified principled resistance to injustice.
The event was moderated by Vincentian-born Sherrill-Ann Mason of Medgar Evers College, City University of New York, and Pablo Fajardo Mendoza of Friends of the Earth Ecuador, who described how Chevron’s operations in the Amazon left communities with “poisoned water, destroyed ecosystems, and intergenerational health impacts.”
Dr. James Hospedales of Trinidad and Tobago emphasized that climate change constitutes “a global public health emergency, one driven overwhelmingly by industrialized nations,” stressing that the disproportionate burden borne by Caribbean populations raises clear questions of reparative justice.
Climate change, participants argued, represents “a continuation of this historical injustice, now playing out through atmospheric appropriation and climate harm.”
Legal analysis by Alana Malinde S. N. Lancaster of The University underscored the need for Caribbean states to assert legal agency.
She argued that de-fossilization must be framed as a right, not a concession, and that international law provides avenues to challenge externally imposed development models.
Lancaster said that Caribbean losses from climate impacts, measured relative to national income, constitute a compelling basis for reparations claims grounded in principles of equity, liability, and intergenerational justice.
Joseph “Professor K” Antoine, president of Friends of the Earth Grenada, renewed the call for Grenadian authorities to honor their pledge to rename the emergency department of the General Hospital in honor of Dr. Winston D. Thomas.
He said honoring the spirit of Dr. Thomas and Jones requires moving beyond remembrance toward action.
“It requires asserting Caribbean sovereignty under international law, rejecting imperial coercion, demanding reparations for climate and historical injustice, and insisting on a future defined by peace, environmental justice, and human dignity rather than profit,” Antoine said.
Felix said the forum concluded with a renewed commitment from Friends of the Earth organizations to advance climate justice as a reparatory and legal struggle.
“The central message was clear: Caribbean states cannot be compelled to absorb the costs of a crisis they did not cause, particularly while major powers retreat from international obligations and revive doctrines of domination,” Felix said.
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