India on Saturday (May 9, 2026) signed eight significant agreements with the West Indian nation Trinidad & Tobago, going beyond traditional diplomacy, as External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar wrapped a high-profile visit.
Jaishankar’s two-day stopover in Trinidad & Tobago was the final stop in his three-nation Caribbean tour that further strengthened India’s growing presence in the region.
The visit on May 8 and 9 focused on delivering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise made during his landmark visit to the Caribbean in 2025 and charting a new pathway for digital and healthcare collaboration between the two nations.
The eight Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed during the visit signalled a push to expand the bilateral ties beyond the traditional trade and diplomacy.
The MoUs focused on strengthening people-to-people ties through closer cooperation in tourism and culture. It also had healthcare collaboration as the highlight, including setting up an Indian Chair on Ayurveda at the University of the West Indies and joint work on vector control.
The two nations agreed to work together on sustainable infrastructure, such as solar power. One of the projects included solarisatin of the Trinidad & Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs building.
In the domain of heritage preservation, the cooperation plan included infrastructure upgrades at Nelson Island, the historic entry point of Indian indentured labourers to the Caribbean, and a site of deep cultural importance for the Indian diaspora.
Jaishankar met with Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. They jointly inaugurated the National Prosthetics Centre in Penal. The centre scales up the success of the “Jaipur Foot” camp, which recently provided artificial limbs to 800 beneficiaries.
“For us in India, there is no greater satisfaction than participating in a concrete manifestation of development,” Jaishankar said at the event. “Prime Minister Modi is obsessed with delivery. If we have done things well at home, we want to do it abroad with our close partners,” he added.
Furthering the “Digital India” outreach, the EAM handed over the first batch of 2,000 laptops to local schoolchildren and inaugurated a new agro-processing facility in Couva, powered by $1 million worth of Indian machinery.
In a rare gesture during the visit, Jaishankar was welcomed at the Trinidad & Tobago parliament, where Persad-Bissessar delivered a formal statement in his honour.
During discussions with Senate President Wade Mark and House Speaker Jagdeo Singh, the Indian External Affairs Minister focused on strengthening parliamentary democracy exchanges.
Before wrapping up his visit, Jaishankar joined the Indian diaspora in Trinidad & Tobago to pay homage to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a prominent Indian freedom fighter, at his bust.
He also visited the Dattatreya Temple, where he addressed the diaspora gathering, honouring the “resilience of the Girmitiya ancestors” as the bedrock of the special relationship between the two nations.