‘Untenable situation in southern Caribbean’
Mottley urges rejection of US military action in Caribbean
Published:Monday | October 27, 2025 | 12:09 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says the United States’ (US) military action in the Caribbean should be rejected, asserting that the region must remain a zone of peace.
Mottley, who was speaking at her Barbados Labour Party’s annual conference on Saturday, said the Caribbean is facing a multiplicity of threats, pointing to the US’ “extrajudicial killings” in the region and Hurricane Melissa battering sections of Haiti and Jamaica.
“We don’t need to look any further than the menacing vessels, military vessels from the United States, across the Caribbean Sea, including what is reputed to be the world’s largest warship,” Mottley told the gathering.
The US has conducted 10 air strikes on vessels in the area as part of what it says is a war on drug traffickers, killing several people including two Trinidad and Tobago nationals.
Added to that, the US deployed the world’s largest warship to the Caribbean – the USS Gerald R Ford – which can carry up to 90 aircraft.
Its deployment marks a massive increase in US firepower in the region.
“These are not times of pirates anymore. This is 2025. And we have cause to be duly concerned, because even as that is happening, one of the most dangerous hurricanes for the 2025 Atlantic season is bearing down on our brothers and sisters in the northern Caribbean, Melissa,” said Mottley.
“We are facing, my friends, an extremely dangerous and untenable situation in the southern Caribbean. And as a people with a tragic history of being subjected to centuries of big power, orchestrated genocide, terrorism, and warfare, and as a small state, we have invested tremendous time and energy and effort in establishing and maintaining our region as a zone of peace,” she added.
PEACE IS BEING THREATENED
Mottley stressed that peace is critical to all the Caribbean, insisting that this peace is now being threatened.
She said the time has come for the region to “speak up” and reject this threat.
“I believe that the time has come for us, therefore, to be able to ensure that we do not accept, that any entity has the right to engage in extrajudicial killings of persons that they suspect of being involved in criminal activities,” said Mottley.
“We stand for the rule of law, and we believe that if there is other intelligence available that would cause you to take action that is an immediate threat to you as a nation, then you have a duty to share with us. But on the face of it, conflating law enforcement with military action is a dangerous step,” she added.
The Barbadian prime minister said, equally, there is no acceptance that any nation in the region or greater Caribbean should be the subject of an imposition upon them, of any unilateral expression of force and violence by any third party or nation.
She said if there are conflicts and disputes that are in need of resolution, they must be taken to the United Nations.
Additionally, Mottley said the methodology that must be deployed for the resolution is one of negotiation and peaceful actions taken in order to ensure that disputes can be settled.
“The violent actions that this build up has led to needs to be the subject of dialogue. And I have said before, almost every war in the world in history has been ended by dialogue, so let us have dialogue to prevent the war from starting rather than to stop it when it has started,” said Mottley.