Morris: T&T now within US/Latin American coalition

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fol­low­ing the 50th Cari­com con­fer­ence in St Kitts and Nevis, T&T is now with­in a US/Latin Amer­i­can coali­tion which shares a com­mon be­lief in na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment, law and or­der, free mar­kets and pri­vate en­ter­prise, bor­der con­trol—and com­mon goals of halt­ing crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist gangs and car­tels, and il­le­gal mass mi­gra­tion, says Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice Nicholas Mor­ris.

And talks be­tween T&T and the US, which oc­curred at the Cari­com con­fer­ence, will con­tin­ue at next week­end’s US Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Mi­a­mi, where the coali­tion meets.

Mor­ris in­di­cat­ed this in a state­ment to Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, as he re­port­ed on the out­comes of T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Cari­com con­fer­ence.

Mor­ris said TT shared its views on geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti, re­gion­al trans­port repa­ra­tions and UWI’s in­dige­nous process.

“Dur­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter gave one of the most forth­right speech­es ever giv­en by a Head of Gov­ern­ment in Cari­com,” Mor­ris added.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s dig­ni­fied lead­er­ship in ad­dress­ing com­plex and sen­si­tive mat­ters af­fect­ing the re­gion was recog­nised through­out the Caribbean as be­ing much need­ed, es­pe­cial­ly the call for en­hanced ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­sive­ness with­in re­gion­al mech­a­nisms and the call for Cari­com to be a prin­ci­pled, im­par­tial and cred­i­ble voice for all of the Com­mu­ni­ty’s peo­ples,” he said.

He said the Prime Min­is­ter high­light­ed mea­sur­able gains achieved through T&T’s strate­gic co­op­er­a­tion with the US in com­bat­ing nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, arms smug­gling and or­gan­ised crime.

Mor­ris said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was “one of the se­lect group” of re­gion­al lead­ers af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage di­rect­ly in one-on-one bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio dur­ing his vis­it with Cari­com lead­ers.”

Among high­lights of their meet­ing, he said, was US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s in­vi­ta­tion for the Prime Min­is­ter to meet with him at the Shield sum­mit.

The coali­tion in the up­com­ing sum­mit in­volves sev­er­al of the Latin Amer­i­can ter­ri­to­ries, which - along with T&T and Guyana - were part of the US’s 2025 coali­tion to fight drug car­tels. That was launched last Au­gust with the US’s heavy mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion.

Mor­ris said the meet­ing with Ru­bio served to ad­vance sev­er­al of the is­sues on the bi­lat­er­al agen­da be­tween T&T and the US, in the ar­eas of en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, trade, hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al pros­per­i­ty.

“Both coun­tries agreed to con­tin­ue the dis­cus­sions in Mi­a­mi dur­ing the Shield sum­mit ... Our for­eign pol­i­cy part­ner­ships with coun­tries through­out the world, in­clud­ing those in Cari­com and the wider Amer­i­c­as, will en­hance T&T’s role as a re­spon­si­ble en­er­gy hub, sup­port­ing do­mes­tic in­dus­try, safe­guard­ing jobs, and con­tribut­ing to re­li­able sup­ply chains that ben­e­fit both T&T and all our over­seas part­ners,” Mor­ris said.

“The Gov­ern­ment sees this coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with the world’s largest econ­o­my as an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T and the US to deep­en hemi­spher­ic en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, strength­en re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty, and re­in­force trust­ed com­mer­cial ties,” he added, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment, in less than nine months, had placed T&T-USA re­la­tions at the high­est lev­els since both es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions in 1962.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so held bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with re­gion­al coun­ter­parts, in­clud­ing Suri­name Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer-Si­mons and Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness.

Dis­cus­sions with Suri­name cen­tred on en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, trans­porta­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing in the en­er­gy sec­tor, agri­cul­ture and co-op­er­a­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties in health.

Talks with Ja­maica fo­cused on im­mi­gra­tion mat­ters and co­op­er­a­tion in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters. Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed com­mit­ment to part­ner­ing with Ja­maica re­gard­ing co­op­er­a­tion in the health­care sec­tor, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and labour.

Mor­ris said Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ar­tic­u­lat­ed T&T’s po­si­tion on Cu­ba.

Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bring to Par­lia­ment leg­is­la­tion to give ef­fect to the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Treaty, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed.

The PM did so in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing a query by Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Gon­za­les had asked the ques­tion in light of pub­lic state­ments made by Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley re­ject­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim that firearms deal­er Brent Thomas was “kid­napped” from Bar­ba­dos. Gon­za­les not­ed that T&T has rat­i­fied but not yet op­er­a­tionalised the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Treaty.

On Gon­za­les’s query, Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied, “Yes...”