ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, August 2nd — Grenada’s relationship with Washington has entered its most strained chapter in decades, with a permanent US visa bond rule taking effect Monday, just months after the Trump administration revoked the visa of a sitting Cabinet minister and pressed the government over a proposed military radar installation.

Beginning Aug. 3, Grenadian applicants for B1/B2 visitor visas may be required to post refundable bonds of up to US$20,000, with consular officers able to set the amount at US$10,000, US$15,000 or US$20,000 and the previous US$5,000 tier eliminated. Grenada was added to the bond program in April alongside 49 other nations.

The bond rule follows an August 2025 flashpoint in which the US revoked all three American visas held by Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall, a move regional media tied to Washington’s crackdown on governments linked to Cuba’s medical brigade program.

Cornwall becoming the first senior Caribbean official targeted struck directly at the Mitchell administration, which has kept Cuban doctors and nurses in Grenadian hospitals despite US pressure to cut ties.

Compounding the strain, critics say Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell was out of the country on overseas engagements and missed two high-level meetings in St. George’s with visiting senior US officials in recent months — absences opposition voices have folded into a wider critique of a travel schedule that has drawn scrutiny from local press and government-efficiency researchers alike.

Tension deepened further in October, when Grenada’s government confirmed it had received a formal US request to temporarily install radar equipment and technical personnel at Maurice Bishop International Airport — ostensibly to monitor Venezuela, where American warships have massed offshore.

Addressing Parliament in November, Mitchell insisted his government would not enter into any secret arrangement that would violate Grenadian or international law, while former Senate President Chester Humphrey warned that the request echoes the run-up to the 1983 US invasion.

With visa restrictions, bond requirements, and military overtures, the Dickon Mitchell administration has remained silent on how — or whether — it intends to push back, through direct lobbying in Washington or collective CARICOM diplomacy.