Ragoonath: PM’s Trump meeting a ‘win’ for T&T

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter’s up­com­ing meet­ing with Unit­ed States (US) Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is a win for her ad­min­is­tra­tion and could be good news for this coun­try.

Yes­ter­day Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that a meet­ing with Trump will be held in Flori­da on March 7. Called “Shield of the Amer­i­c­as”, the meet­ing will al­so in­clude Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali.

Com­ment­ing on the up­com­ing meet­ing, Ra­goonath told Guardian Me­dia, “It is a win for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in that she has giv­en un­equiv­o­cal sup­port to the US, and this is the way that the US is now seem­ing­ly en­sur­ing that she re­mains in the US’ cor­ner.”

Ra­goonath added, “Guyana with that oil boom, is crit­i­cal to the Amer­i­c­as, too. We can't for­get Mr. Radar in To­ba­go, and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was one of the coun­tries, the on­ly coun­try in the Cari­com re­gion which al­lowed the US to set up that in­stal­la­tion with­in our bor­ders.”

Ra­goonath said his on­ly con­cern is if the Prime Min­is­ter is sup­port­ing a “lame duck” Pres­i­dent who may be los­ing the con­fi­dence of the Amer­i­can peo­ple. He said the up­com­ing mid-term elec­tions in the US will paint a clear­er pic­ture how­ev­er he said for now the meet­ing with Trump is good news for this coun­try.

Asked what he hopes could be achieved from the meet­ing with Trump, Ra­goonath joked, “Well, the next thing we'd want to know is when they're re­mov­ing the visa from Trinidad cit­i­zens, right?”