Fallout over US/Cuba embargo issue

For­mer T&T prime min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer Ja­maican prime min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son have re­buked T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s clap­back at their re­cent con­cerns about the ex­pand­ed US em­bar­go against Cu­ba, point­ing out that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment had sup­port­ed an end to the em­bar­go.

Row­ley and Pat­ter­son is­sued state­ments yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pot­shots af­ter they and six for­mer Cari­com lead­ers last week ex­pressed con­cern about the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of the US block­ade on oil sup­plies from third coun­tries to Cu­ba. The US threat­ened trade tar­iffs on such sup­pli­ers.

Deem­ing it ter­ror­ist eco­nom­ic war­fare, the for­mer Cari­com lead­ers called on the US to re­peal its “weapon of mass de­struc­tion.”

The eight Caribbean el­der states­men com­prised for­mer Guyana pres­i­dent Don­ald Ramo­tar plus for­mer prime min­is­ters Fre­un­del Stu­art (Bar­ba­dos), Edi­son James (Do­mini­ca), Till­man Thomas (Grena­da), Bruce Gold­ing and Pat­ter­son (Ja­maica), Dr Ken­ny An­tho­ny (St Lu­cia), and Row­ley (T&T).

Yes­ter­day, Pat­ter­son said three more for­mer Cari­com lead­ers have sub­scribed to the state­ment: for­mer prime min­is­ters Bald­win Spencer (An­tigua & Bar­bu­da), Said Musa (Be­lize) and Dr Ralph Gon­salves (St Vin­cent & the Grenadines).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had sharply crit­i­cised their state­ments, in­clud­ing say­ing they would not have been able to is­sue such if they had been liv­ing in Cu­ba. Her at­tack has been seen as a sign that Cari­com’s con­fer­ence in St Kitts—be­gin­ning to­day—will have dif­fi­cul­ty reach­ing a unit­ed po­si­tion on Cu­ba.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on the Cu­ba sit­u­a­tion has been very clear and con­sis­tent since Dr Er­ic Williams’ days. Dr Williams wrote about it and the role of colo­nial­ism in di­min­ish­ing us through racism and eco­nom­ic stran­gu­la­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go has been in the fore­front of op­pos­ing the US block­ade of a Caribbean na­tion.

“Our for­eign pol­i­cy on Cu­ba was very con­sis­tent as we kept a lead­er­ship role in call­ing for a change in US pol­i­cy. George Cham­bers, ANR Robin­son, Patrick Man­ning, Bas­deo Pan­day and a UNC gov­ern­ment un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar (2010-2015) un­der­stood and kept up our ad­vo­ca­cy and re­la­tion­ship with Cu­ba and the Unit­ed States.”

Row­ley added, “The last time T&T ad­dressed this is­sue in keep­ing with our long­stand­ing pol­i­cy, is when I ad­dressed the Unit­ed Na­tions (2019) and called for a lift­ing of the em­bar­go against Cu­ba.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, a new Gov­ern­ment is now in of­fice in T&T and they have no dif­fi­cul­ty in fol­low­ing a new and dif­fer­ent course where re­spect for our sov­er­eign­ty, his­to­ry and na­tion­al dig­ni­ty mean noth­ing.

“The dis­mis­sive in­sults aimed at Cari­com lead­ers sup­pos­ed­ly are meant to clear the way and jus­ti­fy our new vas­sal sta­tus as we gen­u­flect to racism, geno­cide and the new colo­nial­ism in the ex­pec­ta­tion of ben­e­fits and con­trived ‘friend­ship’.”

Pat­ter­son said, “We were mind­ful that dur­ing her pre­vi­ous tenure as Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad & To­ba­go, Hon. Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in ben­e­fi­cial re­la­tion­ships with Cu­ba and sup­port­ed an­nu­al res­o­lu­tions at the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly de­mand­ing an end to the US em­bar­go. Her com­mend­able con­sis­ten­cy, ev­i­dent in Oc­to­ber 2025, when 165 na­tions re­it­er­at­ed this call, was a pred­i­cate for our ap­peal to avoid the loom­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Cu­ba.”

Pat­ter­son added, “There can be no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the im­po­si­tion of a fu­el em­bar­go which could ex­tin­guish 11 mil­lion civil­ian lives. Our con­cern now is about hu­man sur­vival. Ex­pos­ing the cit­i­zens in any coun­try to star­va­tion, dis­ease and ex­tinc­tion by the de­nial of en­er­gy re­sources pos­es a mor­tal dan­ger that tran­scends any con­sid­er­a­tion of ide­ol­o­gy.

“... We note with sat­is­fac­tion the in­ten­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar to at­tend the 50th Cari­com meet­ing of Heads in St Kitts & Nevis and an­tic­i­pate she will there, as is her right and cus­tom, ful­ly en­gage in con­struc­tive dis­cus­sions which ad­vance our col­lec­tive in­ter­ests for our shared hu­man­i­ty.

“The crit­i­cal haz­ards and tur­bu­lence which con­front us de­mand that our con­sid­er­able vo­cal fire­pow­er as past, present and fu­ture lead­ers be di­rect­ed against the hege­mon­ic eco­nom­ic ag­gres­sion which threat­ens hav­oc and death in our Caribbean space and not at each oth­er.”