Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump.

In a let­ter to Trump in the wake of his sweep­ing vic­to­ry over Hillary Clin­ton on Tues­day, Row­ley re-af­firmed the com­mit­ment of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T "to strength­en­ing and deep­en­ing the al­ready ex­cel­lent bi­lat­er­al ties which ex­ist be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca."

Cit­ing Trump's vic­to­ry as an in­di­ca­tion of the con­fi­dence placed in him by the Amer­i­can peo­ple, Row­ley con­veyed best wish­es to Trump, his ad­min­is­tra­tion and his fam­i­ly, an Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter state­ment con­firmed.

Mean­while, one T&T na­tion­als who is hap­py Trump is now US Pres­i­dent-elect is his for­mer neigh­bour in Trump Tow­ers in New York, Jack Warn­er.

"Im­me­di­ate­ly on the morn­ing he won, I sent him a con­grat­u­la­to­ry email," Warn­er said yes­ter­day, sound­ing very hap­py at Trump's vic­to­ry over De­moc­rats con­tender Hillary Clin­ton.

Still elat­ed at Trump's vic­to­ry yes­ter­day, Warn­er said: "My email to him con­grat­u­lat­ed him on his stun­ning vic­to­ry. I told him what he has done is turn pol­i­tics on its head and that he has made poll­sters be­come ir­rel­e­vant."

Warn­er, who is cur­rent­ly fight­ing ex­tra­di­tion to the US in re­la­tion to his op­er­a­tion as a for­mer CON­CA­CAF/FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive, said Trump had been his land­lord and neigh­bour for 20 years while he (Warn­er) was at CON­CA­CAF.

"The CON­CA­CAF of­fice I had head­ed was on the 17th floor of the Trump Tow­ers from 1990 to 2010 and my own apart­ment was on the 52nd floor of the Trump Tow­ers as well. In fact, my apart­ment was op­po­site his and we were ac­cus­tomed to greet­ing each oth­er," Warn­er said.

"I had rent­ed the of­fice space for (US)$11,000 a month and by the time we va­cat­ed in 2010, the rent was (US)$100,000 month­ly. I would al­so of­ten go to his casi­no in At­lantic City, so I'm all for him and wish him the best."

Al­so yes­ter­day, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said he had giv­en his suc­ces­sor, Ed­mund Dil­lon, con­tact for Trump con­fi­dante Rudy Giu­liani, tipped to be Trump's at­tor­ney gen­er­al or Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty head, last year when the PNM took of­fice.

Grif­fith said that was giv­en in an an­ti-crime plan which Giu­liani had done for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.