PM on US ‘double tap’ strike: Unflagged vessel treated as pirate ship

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the ves­sel at the cen­tre of the Unit­ed States’ “dou­ble tap” con­tro­ver­sy may not have been fly­ing a flag and was there­fore treat­ed as a pi­rate ves­sel.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day stopped short of pro­nounc­ing on the in­ci­dent, which some in the Unit­ed States have de­scribed as a “war crime.”

She said she had no ev­i­dence to sug­gest the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion act­ed un­law­ful­ly dur­ing the Sep­tem­ber strike, not­ing that the US does not in­form Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore car­ry­ing out op­er­a­tions against ves­sels sus­pect­ed of drug traf­fick­ing.

The Prime Min­is­ter added that con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief, the Unit­ed States does not no­ti­fy T&T be­fore con­duct­ing strikes on ves­sels sus­pect­ed of drug traf­fick­ing.

Asked Sun­day about the “dou­ble tap” strike, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had asked for more time to re­search the mat­ter.

Asked again yes­ter­day out­side the Par­lia­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I don’t see how it ap­plies to me or what it has to do with me or Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Unit­ed States is a sov­er­eign na­tion and they are free to ex­er­cise their sov­er­eign­ty in man­ners that they see or deem fit. I can­not be judge and ju­ry here to de­ter­mine whether they are right or whether they are wrong. Those are not with­in our ju­ris­dic­tion or my re­mit.”

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that any ves­sel sail­ing with­out a na­tion­al flag risks be­ing clas­si­fied as a pi­rate ship and, as such, would not be en­ti­tled to the same pro­tec­tions af­ford­ed to le­git­i­mate mar­itime ves­sels.

“If there is a boat or a ship out in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters and it doesn’t car­ry a flag, so you don’t know, does it be­long to T&T? Does it be­long to the US? To whom does it be­long to? Then my ad­vice is that with­in the law, they are treat­ed like pi­rates and there­fore will not have the pro­tec­tion that oth­ers car­ry­ing a flag iden­ti­fy­ing who they are and where they are go­ing. So, they are ba­si­cal­ly pi­rates at sea,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that her Gov­ern­ment sup­ports the Unit­ed States’ re­gion­al drug in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts, but on­ly if those op­er­a­tions re­main with­in the bounds of the law.

Ad­dress­ing the world at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) in late Sep­tem­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared, “We will fight fire with fire with­in the law.”

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the strike was made against an al­leged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber 2025.

Re­ports in­di­cate that af­ter an ini­tial strike, a sec­ond mis­sile was fired, killing two sur­vivors of the first at­tack who were in the wa­ter.

US War Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth has been scru­ti­nised over re­ports that he gave a ver­bal or­der for “no one to be left alive” be­fore the mis­sion, lead­ing to the fol­low-up strike. He has de­nied giv­ing a spe­cif­ic or­der to kill sur­vivors, though he has ful­ly sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion to con­duct the sec­ond strike, cit­ing the need to “elim­i­nate the threat” posed by al­leged nar­co-ter­ror­ists.

The Pen­ta­gon’s own man­u­al on the laws of war states that or­ders to fire up­on ship­wrecked sur­vivors are “clear­ly il­le­gal.” This has led to bi­par­ti­san calls in the US Con­gress for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the le­gal­i­ty of the strike and whether a war crime was com­mit­ted.

Pressed by Guardian Me­dia over the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the sec­ond strike yes­ter­day, the PM in­sist­ed the US does not in­form T&T about its strikes in the re­gion.

“Con­trary to the view, they don’t tell me when they are go­ing to strike a ship or a boat. We are not ad­vised, we are not giv­en that in­for­ma­tion, and they are free to hold that in­for­ma­tion. Those are se­cu­ri­ty is­sues for them. So yes, I say it must be done with­in the law and so far, I have no ev­i­dence that Trinidad and To­ba­go is act­ing un­law­ful­ly. “

Asked if she will be seek­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion from the US to en­sure this coun­try is not sup­port­ing a “war crime,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “The US is a sov­er­eign na­tion and is en­ti­tled to car­ry out its du­ties and its func­tions as they see fit. Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not be judge and ju­ry with re­spect to their ac­tions.”