St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is not a country that gets a lot of attention. Located in the eastern Caribbean, its islands take up about 150 square miles of land, and it's home to just over 100,000 people. For a long time, it was a British colony, but it finally achieved full independence in 1979, though it's still part of the British Commonwealth, and King Charles is technically still head of state.
About 22 years after gaining independence, the people there made a grave mistake of electing a socialist prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, in 2001. A pal to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, Gonsalves joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) — that's the commie leftist bloc Castro and Chávez created in 2004 — though I suspect it may lose its membership now as Bolivia did recently when it also rejected socialism. Gonsalves also, as socialists do, began the country into the ground.
On Thursday, while those of us in the United States were eating turkey and watching football, the good people of SVG were heading to the polls to vote for a new prime minister. Fed up with Gonsalves after two and a half decades of cost-of-living increases, high unemployment rates (currently around 18% and around 30% or higher for young people), COVID vaccine mandates, and government corruption, among other things, they said hell no to another moment of leftist rule.
And they did so overwhelmingly. SVG's House of Assembly has 15 directly elected members. During Thursday's voting, only one of those seats went to Gonsalves' Unity Labor Party. The other 14 went to the more conservative New Democratic Party. Godwin Friday, the party's leader, also became the country's new prime minister.
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Friday promises more jobs for SVG's people, better wages, and improved security and infrastructure. The country currently has a 26% poverty rate.
Gonsalves was also one of Nicolás Maduro's biggest allies, and many experts on the region are calling Friday's win an "important victory for freedom over the socialist, pro-Maduro government," as Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) put it.
#Venezuela: the @NicolasMaduro regime and #ALBA have lost an important ally. Long-time PM Ralph Gonsalves lost reelection tonight to the New Democratic Party.
— Ryan Berg, PhD (@RyanBergPhD) November 28, 2025
Like Trinidad & Tobago, the Trump admin should work to bring St Vincent & the Grenadines into the anti-Maduro coalition.
🚨From the United States Congress, I congratulate the people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on a resounding victory in tonight’s election for Dr. Godwin Friday.
— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) November 28, 2025
An important victory for freedom over the socialist, pro-Maduro gov that has ruled the island nation for…
There's just one small problem. SVG is currently one of the few pro-Taiwan countries left in the world. "Over 44 years of diplomatic ties, the two countries have maintained a close partnership, achieving notable results in cooperation on agriculture, food security, infrastructure, public health, information and communications technology (ICT) and women's empowerment," Taiwan's Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Friday when congratulating the new prime minister.
Despite all of his Marxist policies and rhetoric, Gonsalves was a Taiwan guy to the very end.
But over the last decade or so, Friday's New Democratic Party has talked about how it's open to switching SVG's ties to Beijing. Friday isn't a hardcore China guy, but he's flexible on the matter, or, as best I can tell, he's practical rather than ideological. He's open to what he thinks is going to be best — and most lucrative — for his country.
In my opinion, switching allegiance from Taiwan to China ain't it. He's just going to turn SVG into another Belt and Road debt trap. Taiwan will fight to maintain this partnership, but it's going to cost them. The best thing the United States can do right now is start courting Friday. Send Marco Rubio or Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to the country. Invite Friday to D.C. or Mar-a-Lago for a visit with Donald Trump.
We already have a good relationship with the country, though it's not deeply strategic. We need to up the talks from diplomacy to investments. It's the only way to counter the appeal of a shiny — but dangerous — blank check from the CCP before it's too late.
But ultimately, it's great to see yet another one of our neighbors take a swing to the right. I suspect we'll see more in the year to come. Up next? Honduras, which I'll write more about later in my "The New Monroe Doctrine" column.
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