No apology to make! PM says she stands side-by-side with Trump; insists recent narco strikes were lawful

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­in­forced her sup­port for the Unit­ed States as “the leader of the free world in this hemi­sphere,” and she’s said US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has done noth­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go, but maybe he has some oth­er peo­ple to deal with.

The Prime Min­is­ter un­der­scored her en­dorse­ment of the US in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, as she de­tailed Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da for the com­ing months.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty re­mains pri­or­i­ty, re­vealed that Gov­ern­ment did not in­tend to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency be­yond Jan­u­ary 31, adding they have brought the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones law - like Ja­maica’s - to pick up where the SoE ends.

The PM said she’d spo­ken to Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness on what that coun­try did with their Spe­cial Zones and T&T’s Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der spent time with Ja­maica’s po­lice, who shared their mod­el

“But let’s not ‘diss’ the SoE. By mid­night, De­cem­ber last year, our na­tion­al mur­der rate was brought down by 42 per cent - the largest de­cline in T&T’s his­to­ry and one of the most sig­nif­i­cant drops glob­al­ly in 2025 ...” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, laud­ing po­lice, army lead­ers and their forces.

“We re­main fo­cused as a pri­or­i­ty on safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, main fo­cus against traf­fick­ing, against transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, And to­day, I make no apol­o­gy for stand­ing side by side, with our old­est trad­ing part­ner, the leader of the free world, in this hemi­sphere. I make no apol­o­gy,” she said of her Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port of the US strike on al­leged drug boats in the Caribbean re­gion since last Sep­tem­ber.

The PM said if the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) had good lawyers on its side, the Gov­ern­ment al­so has some very good lawyers, in­clud­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“They will tell you that no in­ter­na­tion­al law that was breached when we were ‘tak­ing out’...when peo­ple were be­ing ‘tak­en out’ in their boats, traf­fick­ing - hu­man traf­fick­ing, drugs, chil­dren... That is what we were do­ing - transna­tion­al crime. That is what we were fight­ing, and we make no apol­o­gy to­day.”

“So, find a good lawyer, be­cause we have the le­gal opin­ions on this mat­ter, and again, we make no apol­o­gy for it. In any event, I re­mem­ber right here in this Par­lia­ment, I was sit­ting across there (Op­po­si­tion) and a Mem­ber (on the Gov­ern­ment) side said, ‘what Trump go do we?’”

She added, “We now find­ing what Trump did us, find­ing out and could do ... very dis­re­spect­ful.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar then in­ter­ject­ed, “Wel­come back” to PNM MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who re­turned to Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter med­ical leave.

The PM con­tin­ued, “So, ‘what Trump go do we’, Trump did us noth­ing! But you’ll find out what Trump will ‘do’ them’. Find out, find out...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so quipped about crosstalk.

“... I’m not sure I’m hear­ing right... if the MP is say­ing ‘dey com­ing for Row­ley’ .... we didn’t say it ... the Mem­ber is say­ing it...”

Probe in­to Brent Thomas ab­duc­tion on

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said planned leg­is­la­tion in­cludes a Cari­com ar­rest war­rant bill for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Treaty.

“The ob­jec­tive of that treaty was es­tab­lished with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, a sys­tem of ar­rest and sur­ren­der of re­quest­ed per­sons for the pur­pos­es of con­duct­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions or ex­e­cut­ing cus­to­di­al sen­tences. So, we can work to­geth­er as a Cari­com re­gion, which, re­gret­tably, is no longer a zone of peace. So, we can work to­geth­er to fight the crime in the Cari­com re­gion.”

She added that there should nev­er ever be an­oth­er episode such as firearm deal­er Brent Thomas’ “ab­duc­tion” from Bar­ba­dos.

“This man was in Bar­ba­dos and was picked up. He was kid­napped, ab­duct­ed, put in a po­lice ve­hi­cle, tak­en to the air­port us­ing an RSS plane. And up to now, no one could tell us who was re­spon­si­ble for that.

“No­body could tell us - I re­mem­ber when that hap­pened, I wrote to sev­er­al of­fi­cials here in the gov­ern­ment, in the for­mer gov­ern­ment, I wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, be­cause that’s where the man was ab­duct­ed,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“And I’m be­ing ad­vised - in­ves­ti­ga­tions are un­der­way - I’m be­ing ad­vised that that could not hap­pen with­out min­is­te­r­i­al in­ter­ven­tion. So, it’s be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, we’ll get to the bot­tom of it and those re­spon­si­ble will have to face jus­tice - we will do that in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” the PM added.