Sobers assures T&T sovereignty intact after meetings with US officials

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics in Flori­da for the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is seek­ing to as­sure cit­i­zens that the gains made for Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as meet­ing did not come at the ex­pense of this na­tion’s sov­er­eign­ty.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the new­ly es­tab­lished mil­i­tary al­liance known as the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion.

This means that Trinidad and To­ba­go has pledged not on­ly to as­sist in dis­man­tling crim­i­nal car­tels and for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions, but al­so to sup­port the Unit­ed States in lim­it­ing ex­ter­nal in­flu­ences from out­side the West­ern Hemi­sphere, there­by help­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion con­sol­i­date its po­si­tion as the dom­i­nant pow­er in the re­gion.

How­ev­er, the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter told the Sun­day Guardian that T&T did not sur­ren­der its au­ton­o­my as part of the arrange­ment.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a sov­er­eign na­tion. What the Prime Min­is­ter has done is ex­act­ly what she said she was go­ing to do dur­ing the cam­paign trail. Seek out new part­ners, forge strong re­la­tion­ships with new part­ners. And that is what this is part of, that evolv­ing, as we con­tin­ue to grow as an is­sue.”

Asked how this coun­try will bal­ance the se­cu­ri­ty ben­e­fits from sign­ing on to the mil­i­tary al­liance with the na­tion’s long-term eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lates to trade with eco­nom­ic pow­er­hous­es not aligned with the US such as Chi­na, Sobers said, “I think what this sum­mit has done is to il­lu­mi­nate cer­tain things that we need to work to­geth­er as a re­gion, as like-mind­ed coun­tries with­in this re­gion. And to work stronger to­geth­er as like-mind­ed na­tions with­in this re­gion. That is what this sum­mit has done.”

He added, “And it has al­lowed us to be able to do that by hav­ing link­ages, di­rect link­ages with peo­ple who can make prop­er de­ci­sions in re­al time, which is some­thing that has not ex­ist­ed be­fore.”

Min­is­ter Sobers proud­ly de­clared, “This has been one of the most suc­cess­ful mul­ti­lat­er­al en­gage­ments that I have ever wit­nessed in life. And I think that the world would have ever wit­nessed in a very long time,” Sobers said dur­ing a break in pro­ceed­ings at the Trump Na­tion­al Do­ral Ho­tel, where the sum­mit was held.

Sobers said sev­er­al suc­cess­ful meet­ings were held yes­ter­day with “the ma­jor­i­ty of the US Cab­i­net.”

“The en­gage­ments have been fan­tas­tic. We’ve achieved a lot in terms of our dis­cus­sions. And I think Trinidad and To­ba­go is def­i­nite­ly on its way to be­ing safer, more pros­per­ous.”

In terms of this coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor, Sobers said, “We had an ex­treme­ly lengthy con­ver­sa­tion with the Sec­re­tary of En­er­gy, Sec­re­tary Wright.”

Asked if he could re­veal any specifics of the meet­ing as it per­tained to the for­mer Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, Sobers, who is al­so the MP for Tabaquite said, “What I can say is that there is sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­est and as you know, just as with re­spect to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, there are cer­tain mat­ters re­gard­ing en­er­gy that we need to be very care­ful of with re­spect to dis­clo­sure pre­ma­ture­ly.”

Mean­while, Sobers was asked if T&T was asked by the US to dis­con­tin­ue the Cuban med­ical pro­gramme.

This pro­gramme is a long-stand­ing bi­lat­er­al agree­ment where the gov­ern­ment re­cruits Cuban doc­tors and nurs­es to fill crit­i­cal gaps in the lo­cal pub­lic health sec­tor.

It is cur­rent­ly tran­si­tion­ing from a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment mis­sion to a di­rect-con­tract­ing mod­el to ad­dress in­ter­na­tion­al labour con­cerns and en­sure the sta­bil­i­ty of spe­cial­ist care.

Sobers said, “That did not come up in any dis­cus­sions at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit. It did not come up at Trinidad and To­ba­go, at the meet­ings.”

How­ev­er, as a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net, he could not con­firm that the pro­gramme would re­main.

The Ja­maican For­eign Min­istry an­nounced on March 5 that it would ter­mi­nate the 50-year-old med­ical co­op­er­a­tion pro­gramme.