Chaguanas chamber welcomes US security cooperation

Shas­tri Boodan

Lo­cal busi­ness­es have op­er­at­ed un­der the strain of or­gan­ised crime and a State of Emer­gency for too long, ac­cord­ing to Bal­dath Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC).

Ma­haraj spoke with Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day night at a func­tion host­ed by Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man Ra­jive Dip­nar­i­nesingh at Galera Road, Lange Park.

Ma­haraj said the CCIC wel­comes the re­cent en­gage­ment be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump dur­ing the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da.

“See­ing our gov­ern­ment work with the Unit­ed States to share in­tel­li­gence and utilise ad­vanced re­sources to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal net­works is ex­act­ly the kind of big-pic­ture think­ing that re­stores in­vestor con­fi­dence,” Ma­haraj said.

He de­scribed the meet­ing as a sig­nif­i­cant diplo­mat­ic move that places Trinidad and To­ba­go with­in a de­vel­op­ing hemi­spher­ic al­liance fo­cused on se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj, dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing the pro­posed Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion rep­re­sent more than po­lit­i­cal mes­sag­ing, but a prac­ti­cal step to­ward ad­dress­ing crim­i­nal net­works that have af­fect­ed the coun­try’s busi­ness cli­mate.

“Lo­cal en­ter­pris­es have long been forced to op­er­ate in an en­vi­ron­ment over­shad­owed by or­gan­ised crime,” Ma­haraj said. “Clos­er co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States in in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and ad­vanced en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties is pre­cise­ly the type of strate­gic ac­tion need­ed to re­store sta­bil­i­ty and re­build in­vestor con­fi­dence.”

He added that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sum­mit sig­nals that the coun­try is tak­ing a more ac­tive role in re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

“This part­ner­ship sends a strong mes­sage that Trinidad and To­ba­go is not sim­ply ob­serv­ing the chal­lenges fac­ing the Caribbean, but is pre­pared to stand as a se­ri­ous part­ner in build­ing a safer West­ern Hemi­sphere,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj al­so point­ed to the po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of stronger diplo­mat­ic ties with Wash­ing­ton, not­ing that en­gage­ment with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and se­nior of­fi­cials such as US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio could help un­lock new trade and en­er­gy op­por­tu­ni­ties.

He said such co­op­er­a­tion could sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s plans for eco­nom­ic re­build­ing and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth with­in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and re­tail sec­tors.

“It is a mas­ter­stroke of diplo­ma­cy to align our­selves so close­ly with our largest trad­ing part­ner at a time when glob­al sup­ply chains and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty dy­nam­ics are shift­ing,” he said.

Ma­haraj said stronger bor­ders and sol­id diplo­mat­ic part­ner­ships would ul­ti­mate­ly help cre­ate the con­di­tions nec­es­sary for lo­cal com­pa­nies to ex­pand be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber firm­ly sup­ports this col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach,” he said, “as it bal­ances the im­me­di­ate need for law and or­der with the long-term goal of mak­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go the most at­trac­tive in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion in the re­gion.”