Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says that at times yes­ter­day's talks be­tween Unit­ed States Vice-Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and lead­ers from the 15-na­tion Cari­com group were "bru­tal," but that the US re­mains a strong al­ly to the en­tire re­gion.

Speak­ing at a news brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, af­ter the talks, which in­clud­ed a del­e­ga­tion from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the T&T Gov­ern­ment had al­so been in­vit­ed by the US to view de­com­mis­sioned naval ves­sels to see whether they would be able to as­sist T&T with bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.

At yes­ter­day's brief­ing, at which no ques­tions were al­lowed, the cur­rent chair­man of Cari­com, Hait­ian Pres­i­dent Michel Martel­ly, de­scribed the talks as "frank but cor­dial" and said the meet­ing with Biden was an im­por­tant pre­cur­sor to a sum­mit be­tween re­gion­al lead­ers and US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

While Biden, who spoke first, said the talks were "im­por­tant," "com­plete­ly open, frank and straight­for­ward," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Both of you men­tioned be­ing very frank. I would say that it was bru­tal, but at the end of the day there was con­sen­sus and to­geth­er we share much in com­mon: in terms of our peo­ple, in terms of our cul­ture. In­deed our ju­rispru­dence and our lan­guage."

Ad­dress­ing Biden di­rect­ly, she said while South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca are clos­er to Cari­com ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly, "in many ways the Cari­com re­gion is clos­er to the US and we were very heart­ened to hear your com­ments and warm wish­es and the reded­i­ca­tion and recom­mit­ment on the part of the US to con­tin­ue to part­ner and work with T&T and the Cari­com."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said while there may be some who were of the view that the US was no longer in­ter­est­ed in the Caribbean re­gion, "the very fact that Vice-Pres­i­dent Biden is here in the re­gion is tes­ti­mo­ny to the fact that the US re­mains a very strong al­ly of Cari­com and we will con­tin­ue to be part­ners to­geth­er in the de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion."

Biden said he was here in the re­gion be­cause Pres­i­dent Oba­ma want­ed him to have a di­a­logue with re­gion­al lead­ers and be­cause the US wants to be­come more deeply in­vest­ed in part­ner­ship with all the na­tions of the Caribbean."Our search for growth, jobs, af­ford­able sup­plies of en­er­gy, our fight against transna­tion­al crime and the pro­tec­tion of our cli­mate and the en­vi­ron­ment–all of these is­sues have no re­spect for bor­ders and they af­fect all of our bor­ders," Biden said.

He said both him­self and Oba­ma were aware that small is­land, na­tion states faced spe­cial dif­fi­cul­ties as the cost of do­ing busi­ness can be high­er and goods are more ex­pen­sive."And so through the Caribbean Basin Ini­tia­tive, we elim­i­nat­ed tar­iffs on 85 per cent of your goods and now we are look­ing for ad­di­tion­al ways–and you dis­cussed some of them with me to­day–to help cre­ate growth and di­ver­si­ty in the economies of the Caribbean," Biden said.

One of the ways the US is look­ing to cre­ate growth in the re­gion is through the Trade and In­vest­ment Frame­work Agree­ment that Biden and Martel­ly signed yes­ter­day.Biden de­scribed the agree­ment as a ve­hi­cle to over­come "spe­cial, spe­cif­ic, prac­ti­cal bar­ri­ers to trade and in­vest­ment," adding that the joint goal of Cari­com and the US was not on­ly growth but growth that reach­es every­one.