Experts warn of regional fallout from T&T’s US security pact

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts are ques­tion­ing the long-term ben­e­fits of Trinidad and To­ba­go join­ing the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion through the Do­ral char­ter, rais­ing con­cerns about its po­ten­tial im­pact on Cari­com re­la­tions and the longevi­ty of the agree­ment un­der Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

The char­ter out­lines a Unit­ed States-led re­gion­al ef­fort to dis­man­tle drug car­tels and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal gangs op­er­at­ing across the West­ern Hemi­sphere. It al­so aims to strength­en re­la­tion­ships with Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries and re­duce the in­flu­ence of Chi­na, a for­eign pol­i­cy ap­proach called the “Don­roe Doc­trine.”

The coali­tion is a part­ner­ship in­volv­ing mil­i­tary lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 17 coun­tries, in­clud­ing T&T and Guyana, who are com­mit­ted to us­ing co­or­di­nat­ed se­cu­ri­ty and mil­i­tary mea­sures to com­bat or­gan­ised crime.

Un­der the procla­ma­tion, the US and its al­lies will work to­geth­er to de­ny car­tels con­trol of ter­ri­to­ry, cut off their fi­nanc­ing and re­sources, and strength­en part­ner na­tion mil­i­taries through train­ing and mo­bil­i­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, UWI lec­tur­er and pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tor at the In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions In­sti­tute, Dr Michał Paw­ińs­ki, warns that T&T could face long-term diplo­mat­ic and strate­gic chal­lenges af­ter sign­ing the agree­ment at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit over the week­end.

He said the sum­mit could deep­en di­vi­sions with­in Cari­com, not­ing T&T and Guyana were the on­ly two Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean states in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

“In the long term, po­lit­i­cal­ly speak­ing, this is po­ten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing re­la­tions with Cari­com mem­ber states for short-term pos­si­ble eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits,” he said.

“But the ques­tion that should be asked is: at what ex­pense to the long-term vi­sion of the na­tion­al in­ter­ests of Trinidad and To­ba­go? Be­cause Pres­i­dent Trump will not be here per­ma­nent­ly. There will be elec­tions. There will be a new ad­min­is­tra­tion. And I’m pret­ty con­fi­dent that the ma­jor­i­ty of the ini­tia­tives start­ed by Trump, they will be just for­got­ten, in­clud­ing the Board of Peace and the Shields of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit. I don’t think this will sur­vive be­yond Pres­i­dent Trump. So, then what’s next?”

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that T&T ap­pears will­ing to align with the coali­tion’s more ag­gres­sive se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture, which em­pha­sis­es the use of force against crim­i­nal net­works. While such co­op­er­a­tion could bring some eco­nom­ic or strate­gic ben­e­fits, Paw­ińs­ki said the drug war is large­ly a US con­cern, where­as T&T faces more press­ing chal­lenges in health, en­er­gy and food se­cu­ri­ty.

He warned that close align­ment with Wash­ing­ton could dam­age the coun­try’s long-term in­ter­na­tion­al im­age and po­ten­tial­ly make Chi­na more cau­tious about fu­ture in­vest­ment.

“The Chi­nese will be more cau­tious, prob­a­bly with any kind of in­vest­ments, eco­nom­ic in­vest­ments in the se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor, which is a do­main for Amer­i­cans.”

But for­mer head of the UWI IR in­sti­tute, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, is un­easy about T&T seem­ing­ly draw­ing clos­er to the US, par­tic­u­lar­ly un­der Trump’s lead­er­ship, whom he de­scribed as un­pre­dictable in terms of long-term pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.

Gon­za­les is al­so con­cerned about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a US mil­i­tary pres­ence or base be­ing es­tab­lished in T&T as part of deep­er se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. He al­so raised con­cerns about the po­ten­tial im­pact on re­la­tions with Chi­na.

“We have been able to build a lot of things from us­ing loans from Chi­na and so on, and a lot of de­vel­op­ment as­sis­tance. And I don’t know the ex­tent to which we may have to now turn our backs on the Chi­nese. That could prob­a­bly have a neg­a­tive ef­fect,” he said.

“So, these are my con­cerns. I would be a lit­tle more cau­tious about get­ting in­volved in that coali­tion. I don’t mind the idea of get­ting clos­er to the Unit­ed States to fight drugs in so far as they may be able to help you do that a bit bet­ter. But I’m a lit­tle con­cerned about our sov­er­eign­ty and our in­de­pen­dence in terms of Amer­i­can troops com­ing here and the ef­fect that that may have on our coun­try. Not to men­tion our re­la­tions with cer­tain oth­er coun­tries.”

He added, “We seem to be leav­ing be­hind our Cari­com broth­ers on this, and I would have thought that prob­a­bly the best thing to do would have been to do it to­geth­er with our Cari­com neigh­bours. And to that ex­tent, I feel at least a bit con­cerned, a bit wor­ried.”

He was al­so crit­i­cal of the coali­tion’s en­dorse­ment of lethal force against sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ers, say­ing he would have ex­pect­ed Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as a lawyer, to cham­pi­on due process.

Ef­forts to con­tact Per­sad-Bisses­sar and min­is­ters Sean Sobers, Bar­ry Padarath and Nicholas Mor­ris, who ac­com­pa­nied her on the trip, were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

In a re­sponse yes­ter­day, the Chi­nese Em­bassy to T&T said it did not be­lieve the PM’s sign­ing of the agree­ment would af­fect re­la­tions be­tween the coun­tries.

“The Chi­nese side al­ways re­gards Trinidad and To­ba­go as a good friend and a good part­ner, al­ways re­spects Trin­bag­on­ian peo­ple and com­mits to equal treat­ment and mu­tu­al ben­e­fit with Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the em­bassy said.

“We have great con­fi­dence in the fu­ture of Chi­na-TT re­la­tions. No mat­ter how the sit­u­a­tion evolves, Chi­na stands ready to work with Trinidad and To­ba­go to­ward build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture, and spread­ing more ben­e­fits of our com­pre­hen­sive co­op­er­a­tive part­ner­ship to our peo­ples.”