Kamla: US/TT Partnership won’t compromise sovereignty

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion does not com­pro­mise the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day af­ter re­turn­ing from Flori­da for the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit host­ed by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in Do­ral, Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked Trump for in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in what she de­scribed as a “very his­toric coali­tion” across the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

She said the part­ner­ship is in­tend­ed to strength­en re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion and se­cu­ri­ty while en­sur­ing the coun­try re­tains full con­trol over its na­tion­al de­ci­sions and poli­cies.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism about the po­ten­tial im­pact on sov­er­eign­ty, the Prime Min­is­ter said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign­ty “re­mains strong and firm” and ar­gued that part­ner­ships do not weak­en it.

“Sov­er­eign­ty is strength­ened when na­tions work to­geth­er to pro­tect their peo­ple, bor­ders, and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so point­ed to the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing the coali­tion’s ac­tiv­i­ties, say­ing any use of force would be law­ful, ac­count­able and sub­ject to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic over­sight.

“Any ac­tions un­der­tak­en through this col­lab­o­ra­tion will be guid­ed by law, en­sur­ing the use of force and all op­er­a­tional mea­sures re­main law­ful and ac­count­able… We will op­er­ate with­in the rule of law and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions,” she said.

She added that the coali­tion would pro­vide Trinidad and To­ba­go with re­al-time in­tel­li­gence shar­ing, sup­port in com­bat­ing il­le­gal firearms traf­fick­ing, im­proved mar­itime and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, and ac­cess to train­ing and tech­nol­o­gy aimed at dis­man­tling or­gan­ised crime net­works.

“All aimed at dis­man­tling or­gan­ised crime net­works while main­tain­ing the na­tion’s sov­er­eign­ty and con­trol over its own se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies.”