Banking on Trump

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Re­port­ing from Mi­a­mi

One hun­dred and nine­ty-six days af­ter first pub­licly ex­press­ing sup­port for an ex­pand­ed Unit­ed States mil­i­tary pres­ence in the South­ern Caribbean, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will to­day sit across from Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, seek­ing to press for fur­ther as­sis­tance in T&T’s fight against crime.

This meet­ing will rep­re­sent a piv­otal mo­ment in T&T for­eign pol­i­cy un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

At to­day’s Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit at Trump Na­tion­al Do­ral Mi­a­mi ho­tel, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to hold one-on-one dis­cus­sions with Trump and sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cials with­in his ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, Sec­re­tary of Com­merce Howard Lut­nick, US Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jamieson Greer and Sec­re­tary of En­er­gy Chris Wright.

She al­so has bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with the pres­i­dents of Ar­genti­na, El Sal­vador, Pana­ma and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, T&T will be in­vit­ed to sign the Do­ral Char­ter. The doc­u­ment forms the foun­da­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s so-called “Don­roe Doc­trine,” an up­dat­ed in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Mon­roe Doc­trine that seeks to re­assert US in­flu­ence across the West­ern Hemi­sphere and build a coali­tion of po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned re­gion­al part­ners.

The char­ter is ex­pect­ed to fo­cus on three ar­eas. Co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion against drug car­tels and transna­tion­al gangs, a re­gion­al strat­e­gy to curb il­le­gal mi­gra­tion through­out the hemi­sphere, and a pledge by par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries to re­sist ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal or eco­nom­ic in­ter­fer­ence from ri­val pow­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to use the agree­ment to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with Wash­ing­ton, po­ten­tial­ly open­ing the door to en­hanced sur­veil­lance sup­port and mil­i­tary as­sets to help com­bat or­gan­ised crime in T&T. The arrange­ment could al­so deep­en bi­lat­er­al eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion with the US, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

In the lead-up to this sum­mit of a cho­sen few na­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was quite vo­cal about her in­ten­tions com­ing out of this meet­ing. She stressed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions that T&T can­not fight its crime prob­lem alone.

On Tues­day, in jus­ti­fy­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of a sec­ond State of Emer­gency un­der her lead­er­ship, Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote, “Trinidad and To­ba­go now has an in­vite at the ta­ble where in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is be­ing ad­dressed. I will con­tin­ue to seek fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion and as­sis­tance to en­sure that gangs and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works are erad­i­cat­ed from our coun­try.”

Last Fri­day, when asked by Guardian Me­dia if to­day’s meet­ing will re­sult in a fur­ther US mil­i­tary pres­ence in T&T, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed, “Maybe, or maybe not.”

On Feb­ru­ary 24, in the pres­ence of all Cari­com lead­ers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had no re­grets for sup­port­ing the US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean and said she would wel­come them again.

And on Thurs­day, at a pre­cur­sor to this sum­mit called the Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Con­fer­ence, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge pledged this coun­try’s as­sis­tance to the US drug erad­i­ca­tion ef­forts. How­ev­er, he said to be gen­uine­ly ef­fec­tive, T&T will need to be giv­en “as­sets”.

The Shield of the Amer­i­c­as meet­ing to­day will be the first of its kind and is spear­head­ed by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion. It is framed as a strate­gic part­ner­ship de­signed to align the US with like-mind­ed re­gion­al lead­ers to ad­dress shared se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic con­cerns.

T&T and Guyana are the on­ly two Cari­com na­tions in­vit­ed.

The oth­er in­vit­ed na­tions are Ar­genti­na, Chile, Paraguay, Pana­ma, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Cos­ta Ri­ca, El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, Bo­livia and Ecuador.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar and some mem­bers of her del­e­ga­tion ar­rived at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port short­ly af­ter noon yes­ter­day. Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali was al­so on the same Caribbean Air­lines flight.

Up­on leav­ing the im­mi­gra­tion check­point, the rhyth­mic sound of tas­sa drums could be heard. In one of the air­port’s atri­ums, the Mi­a­mi-based Rangeela Tas­sa group played mu­sic in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the PM’s ar­rival.

Their in­stru­ments were adorned with both T&T and US flags. Stand­ing next to them was a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sup­port­er with a much larg­er UNC flag. A lone pan­nist was al­so with the band.

Mem­bers of the group lat­er told Guardian Me­dia they were un­able to see the Prime Min­is­ter, as she was whisked away by US se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel fol­low­ing her ar­rival.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter lat­er took to X to share Guardian Me­dia’s video of the band play­ing in her ho­n­our with the cap­tion, “It was de­light­ful to re­ceive such a warm wel­come up­on my ar­rival at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to­day. Thank you to the mem­bers of the Rangeela Tas­sa Group for the won­der­ful re­cep­tion. To­mor­row, I look for­ward to at­tend­ing the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit, host­ed by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, in the in­ter­est of my beloved peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

10.30 am-11.45 am:

For­eign Del­e­ga­tion Ar­rivals

12-12.30 pm:

Del­e­ga­tion Pho­tos with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump

1-1.15 pm:

Fam­i­ly Pho­to

1.15-3 pm:

Work­ing Lun­cheon host­ed by Pres­i­dent Trump

3-5.30 pm:

Leader De­par­tures and op­por­tu­ni­ties for bi­lat­er­al en­gage­ments

6-7.30 pm:

Re­cep­tion host­ed by Sec­re­tary Mar­co Ru­bio