4 hours ago
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DAREECE POLO
Senior Reporter
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is coming under intense criticism from the Opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) over her support for the deployment of a US amphibious squadron and Navy destroyers to the southern Caribbean, part of Washington’s latest counternarcotics operation.
On Saturday evening, Persad-Bissessar said Government would permit US forces to enter Trinidad and Tobago if Venezuela attacked Guyana over the Essequibo dispute. She also endorsed Washington’s mission, though analysts caution it could serve as a pretext for military action against Caracas.
Former foreign affairs minister Dr Amery Browne branded her remarks as “reckless” and “sinister,” insisting that she had repudiated her duty as prime minister of a founding Caricom member state and as head of regional security within the bloc’s quasi-cabinet. He warned that her stance undermines both national sovereignty and Caricom unity and was at variance with T&T’s foreign policy.
“What she has done there, over 24 hours ago, is to fire a shot across the bow of Caricom solidarity and literally sabotage our region’s ability to form a consensus and craft a united position on this very significant matter,” Browne said.
He claimed that even as he spoke, Caricom’s Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) was holding an emergency meeting to address the issue, while Persad-Bissessar had asserted that each member state should fend for itself — a position he condemned as “reprehensible.”
“Unintelligent, inconsistent, unreliable, and lacking in credibility with respect to the use of marine assets to deal with the drug trade. I’ve just described the UNC,” Browne said, pointing to Persad-Bissessar’s decision during her 2010 People’s Partnership administration to cancel a contract for three Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs). He argued those vessels would have strengthened T&T’s hand against narco-traffickers — an issue he claimed the Prime Minister was only now recognising as a priority.
Browne also stressed that the Opposition supported Guyana in its border dispute with Venezuela but insisted that the matter must be handled “responsibly” within the Caricom framework. He argued that Persad-Bissessar should have engaged with Caricom chair and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness to chart the way forward.
Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles also questioned Persad-Bissessar’s motives, suggesting she appeared eager to win favour with the Trump administration.
“The truth is that we understand a scenario like this requires Caricom to have one position,” she said.
Beckles accused the Prime Minister of undermining the region’s longstanding commitment to being a “zone of peace” by offering T&T as a base for US military operations in the event of a conflict between Guyana and Venezuela.
While acknowledging the threat posed by drug cartels and external influences from Latin America, Beckles warned that the scale of US military assets moving into the region was cause for alarm.
“We support activities to address those issues,” she said, “but when you see the list of machinery and the kind of forces that are heading to the Caribbean, it must be a source for concern.”
Responding to the criticism, Persad-Bissessar defended her position, saying her government would not “sit on its hands” while instability in Venezuela and drug cartels threatened to spill over into Trinidad and Tobago.
Meanwhile, Browne also took aim at Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers, who dismissed remarks by US Vice President JD Vance after he compared crime in Washington, DC, to that of T&T.
Sobers argued that Vance was speaking about crime under the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM).
But Browne countered, “There is no such thing as the Trinidad and Tobago of the PNM or the Trinidad and Tobago of the UNC. We have one nation here, a united Trinidad and Tobago. And when serious countries engage with us or reference us, they are engaging with the State and not any political party. So, leave those references to all domestic discourse.”
He said Sobers could not presume to interpret the intentions of a foreign official in another capital.
“That is unintelligent and it does no good to the national standard and the national image overseas, of which you are the custodian,” he said.
Efforts to reach Sobers for comment were unsuccessful.
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