Alexander avoids questions on U.S. military presence

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der avoid­ed di­rect­ly an­swer­ing ques­tions on how many Unit­ed States (U.S.) mil­i­tary per­son­nel re­main sta­tioned in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ques­tion arose at Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, but the min­is­ter ini­tial­ly de­flect­ed, re­spond­ing in­stead that many for­eign­ers were cur­rent­ly in the coun­try for Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

“You know there are a num­ber of vis­i­tors here in Trinidad and To­ba­go as we speak, com­ing in for car­ni­val and dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al shows. So, the ques­tion that you ask at this time—if you're ask­ing me from a min­is­te­r­i­al point of view where in­tel­li­gence is im­por­tant, I wouldn't be able to an­swer you. But there are a lot of per­sons. I saw one of my friends to­day,” the min­is­ter re­spond­ed.

He added, “He's from Aus­tralia. He came here with his wife to Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­joy the car­ni­val. And he's prob­a­bly a mil­i­tary per­son. So, we have a num­ber of per­sons who are com­ing and go­ing. And to speak about out­side and in­side, I can­not speak to that at this time.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia pressed the min­is­ter, clar­i­fy­ing that the ques­tion specif­i­cal­ly re­lat­ed to U.S. mil­i­tary per­son­nel who re­port­ed­ly came to par­tic­i­pate in train­ing and hu­man­i­tar­i­an work pri­or to the cap­ture of for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

Once again, the min­is­ter was un­able to pro­vide a spe­cif­ic an­swer.

“Well, as I said be­fore, there are a num­ber of per­sons here in terms of the train­ing and de­vel­op­ment. We al­ways have per­sons train­ing per­sons here,” the min­is­ter not­ed. “We are thank­ful that they are able to come to our shores and share their ex­pe­ri­ence with us and teach us things. And we love that. We wish it could hap­pen every day, but it isn't al­ways pos­si­ble. So, they come and go. At this time, I can­not speak to whether they are here or not.”

That same ques­tion was put to For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers on Mon­day.

At the time, Sobers had said: “Ob­vi­ous­ly, el­e­ments in the U.S. are in fact in Trinidad. They’ve al­ways ever been in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have el­e­ments of U.S. law en­force­ment ac­tive­ly work­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which would as­sist us in terms of com­bat­ing the same transna­tion­al crime that we are fight­ing.”

On No­vem­ber 20, 2025, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there were 250 marines from the 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) in the coun­try, train­ing De­fence Force per­son­nel at Cu­mu­to, Teteron and Omega.

On No­vem­ber 26, the Prime Min­is­ter said as far as she was aware, those troops had left, and there were no more U.S. mil­i­tary per­son­nel in the coun­try.