PM, Landau hail strengthening T&T-US relations

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment in­tends to build on what she de­scribed as the strong and en­dur­ing friend­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States, as Wash­ing­ton de­clared that re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries are at a “his­toric high.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the state­ment yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau, fol­low­ing his vis­it to this coun­try ear­li­er this week.

She thanked Lan­dau for his vis­it and al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump for what she de­scribed as his “strong sup­port” for T&T.

“My Gov­ern­ment deeply val­ues the strong and en­dur­ing friend­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“We are proud of the progress be­ing made to­geth­er in en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment, crit­i­cal min­er­als, trade and in­vest­ment, and the fight against transna­tion­al crime and drug traf­fick­ing.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said her ad­min­is­tra­tion looked for­ward to fur­ther strength­en­ing the re­la­tion­ship for the “mu­tu­al ben­e­fit, se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty” of both coun­tries.

Her com­ments came af­ter Lan­dau, in a so­cial me­dia post, gave a glow­ing as­sess­ment of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two gov­ern­ments, say­ing ties had reached new heights un­der Trump and Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“Un­der Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, re­la­tions be­tween the US and Trinidad and To­ba­go are at a his­toric high,” Lan­dau said.

He said both lead­ers were fo­cused on achiev­ing tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits for their cit­i­zens and point­ed to co­op­er­a­tion in en­er­gy, crit­i­cal min­er­als and the fight against drug car­tels as ev­i­dence of progress.

Lan­dau said he was “hon­ored and de­light­ed” to trav­el to Port-of-Spain to cel­e­brate joint achieve­ments in “pro­mot­ing en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment, strength­en­ing crit­i­cal min­er­al sup­ply chains, and com­bat­ting drug car­tels.”

His vis­it co­in­cid­ed with the for­mal start of re­fur­bish­ment works at the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas, which is be­ing re­vived through a pro­posed US$750 mil­lion in­vest­ment by Ibis Steel Com­pa­ny, backed by US-based Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion.

The plant has been idle since Arcelor­Mit­tal shut down op­er­a­tions in 2016, leav­ing 644 work­ers dis­placed. Pin­na­cle plans to ini­tial­ly in­vest US$250 mil­lion to re­fur­bish the fa­cil­i­ty, with first pro­duc­tion tar­get­ed for the end of 2027. The ini­tial restart is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate 350 jobs, ris­ing to 500 full-time po­si­tions once pro­duc­tion be­gins. A fur­ther US$500 mil­lion ex­pan­sion is even­tu­al­ly ex­pect­ed to dou­ble em­ploy­ment to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,000 jobs.

Be­yond steel pro­duc­tion, the fa­cil­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to process vana­di­um, a crit­i­cal min­er­al used in aero­space en­gi­neer­ing and bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy.

Pin­na­cle CEO Ed­win Ben­nett said the com­pa­ny ul­ti­mate­ly wants the T&T op­er­a­tion to pro­duce the equiv­a­lent of 100 per cent of the vana­di­um cur­rent­ly im­port­ed by the Unit­ed States, po­si­tion­ing this coun­try as an im­por­tant part of West­ern ef­forts to de­vel­op crit­i­cal-min­er­al sup­ply chains out­side Chi­na.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s cer­e­mo­ny, Lan­dau de­scribed the re­open­ing of the plant as the “res­ur­rec­tion” of T&T’s steel in­dus­try and said the project demon­strat­ed that the grow­ing part­ner­ship be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Port-of-Spain was pro­duc­ing tan­gi­ble re­sults.

“This isn’t just a lot of talk about part­ner­ship; it’s ac­tu­al, tan­gi­ble re­sults,” Lan­dau said at the event.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so high­light­ed the cul­tur­al side of Lan­dau’s vis­it, say­ing it was a plea­sure in­tro­duc­ing him to the “sweet sound” of T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan.

Lan­dau sim­i­lar­ly thanked the Prime Min­is­ter, her team and the peo­ple of T&T for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty, while not­ing that he had been in­tro­duced to the coun­try’s “icon­ic na­tion­al in­stru­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that her Gov­ern­ment in­tends to deep­en the part­ner­ship with Wash­ing­ton, say­ing both coun­tries would con­tin­ue work­ing to­geth­er on eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and se­cu­ri­ty.