Kamla again defends Trump partnership

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is seek­ing to re­as­sure that the re­cent­ly formed mil­i­tary al­liance be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana and the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion will ul­ti­mate­ly ben­e­fit all of Cari­com.

And while speak­ing to mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go di­as­po­ra in Flori­da fol­low­ing the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed her part­ner­ship with the con­tro­ver­sial US Pres­i­dent, de­scrib­ing him as a brave and vi­sion­ary leader.

The Prime Min­is­ter made the com­ments at an event in her ho­n­our at Joy’s Roti De­light in Lauder­hill on Sun­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she must ac­knowl­edge the “great USA” and sought to de­fend the “dif­fer­ent stance” her Gov­ern­ment has tak­en to T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy since be­ing elect­ed in­to of­fice.

She said her de­ci­sion to join the Amer­i­ca’s Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), a US-led re­gion­al mil­i­tary and se­cu­ri­ty al­liance, is one that would be, “in the very best in­ter­est of the en­tire Cari­com, the whole re­gion.”

“That’s the work we are do­ing,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

She lament­ed that the Caribbean re­gion is now plagued by “evil peo­ple.”

“Re­al bad peo­ple. Evil peo­ple. The crim­i­nals are now the ones in the palm. We are elect­ed free with fair elec­tions, but the crim­i­nals run with their cor­rupt ways and in­flu­ence of­fi­cials wher­ev­er they may be, ei­ther be­cause of fame, some are mo­ti­vat­ed by mon­ey. I told some­body last night, how much you will eat? How much you will wear? How much clothes you’ll wear? How much mon­ey do you re­al­ly need? What you need is safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised the US Pres­i­dent.

“We had the dis­tinct ho­n­our to re­al­ly meet with Pres­i­dent Trump. He’s a very brave man. He’s a very coura­geous man be­cause he’s do­ing what needs to be done, not on­ly for USA but for the world. He must have a vi­sion. He has it.”

On Sat­ur­day, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali al­so spoke favourably about Pres­i­dent Trump, say­ing while there have been many con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing crime and se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion, the US Pres­i­dent is now tak­ing di­rect ac­tion.

In com­mend­ing the US Pres­i­dent, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged that Trump re­ceives his share of crit­i­cism but not­ed she, too, is no stranger to scruti­ny.

“There are many peo­ple say­ing not good things about him and there are many peo­ple say­ing very good things about him and there are many peo­ple say­ing very good things about me and there are some peo­ple who are not say­ing some good things about me. But again, safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty. That’s the pri­or­i­ty one.”

She added that af­ter se­cu­ri­ty comes ed­u­ca­tion.

“That’s what we are work­ing for. Ed­u­ca­tion, I al­ways say, is a pass­port out of pover­ty. It is your pass­port out of pover­ty. When I first joined the gov­ern­ment, yes I was the first woman AG and then I went on to be­come the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, which was one of my best times in gov­ern­ment. And we start­ed there that every sin­gle child would have a place in a school.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “Not one child must be left be­hind. And to­day, how many years lat­er, it is still my pol­i­cy, it’s still part of what­ev­er dri­ves me, that not a child should be left be­hind. We have a lot more to do.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged that uni­ver­sal spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion is next on her Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da.

“Be­cause you can make mon­ey, but if you have an ed­u­ca­tion, no one can take it away from you. You’ll be guar­an­teed a job, I think your job, to take care of your­self, to take care of your fam­i­lies.”

To the di­as­po­ra, like she did in New York in Sep­tem­ber 2025, she de­clared, “Trinidad and To­ba­go is open for busi­ness. You came here, you opened your busi­ness­es, you trained your chil­dren. We need those qual­i­fi­ca­tions now. The chil­dren will be trained in all these fields.”

Lauder­hill de­clares PER­SAD-BISSES­SAR DAY

The City of Lauder­hill, Flori­da, is­sued an of­fi­cial procla­ma­tion de­clar­ing March 8, 2026, as “Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Day.”

The procla­ma­tion recog­nis­es Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, pub­lic ser­vice and con­tri­bu­tions to the Caribbean di­as­po­ra, while al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing the sig­nif­i­cant im­pact of the T&T com­mu­ni­ty in South Flori­da.

City of­fi­cials said the ho­n­our co­in­cid­ed with In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day and Women’s His­to­ry Month, high­light­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s role in in­spir­ing women and pro­mot­ing democ­ra­cy, ed­u­ca­tion, and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The procla­ma­tion was is­sued by May­or Denise Grant and the Lauder­hill City Com­mis­sion dur­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s vis­it to en­gage with the T&T di­as­po­ra in South Flori­da.