If uni­formed mil­i­tary pa­rades are lack­ing for to­mor­row’s 63rd In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, many uni­forms are cruis­ing the re­gion’s coasts aboard US ves­sels, with more ex­pect­ed next week.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s un­bend­ing sup­port for Amer­i­can mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment to elim­i­nate drug car­tels, is now chron­i­cled as her biggest, most con­tro­ver­sial step. It’s shift­ed T&T in­to a wa­ter­shed mo­ment for its 63rd In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary and as among Cari­com’s founders, buck­ing the col­lec­tive Cari­com mantra and as­sort­ed treaties deem­ing the re­gion a zone of peace.

This, in favour of seek­ing peace at home, where the drug trade gen­e­sis of crime is con­cerned.

So far, de­spite var­i­ous Cari­com sig­nals of dis­sent on the US mis­sion—peace among the re­gion­al fra­ter­ni­ty ap­pears to be a pri­or­i­ty, af­ter Cari­com’s con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage to Per­sad-Bisses­sar on T&T’s In­de­pen­dence: stat­ing Cari­com’s re­la­tion­ship with T&T re­mains strong and recog­nis­ing this coun­try’s com­mit­ment to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, through its con­tri­bu­tions

Whether or not per­func­tionary, it’s a boost for Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the is­sue which put T&T fur­ther on the map re­gard­ing align­ment with the US’ in­ter­na­tion­al ‘Coali­tion against Car­tels.’

The Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s show of strength is its lat­est, af­ter as­sort­ed head­lin­ers on the world stage and home turf. It’s mes­saged some Venezue­lan al­lies with whom the US is cur­rent­ly clash­ing and in­creased US re­gion­al sup­port—with Cari­com’s two lead­ing ter­ri­to­ries in tow —though frag­ment­ing Cari­com uni­ty and strength.

Ques­tions re­main on the mis­sion, how­ev­er, as half of its corps com­pris­es Marines, an am­phibi­ous force trained for fight in spaces be­tween land and sea - a ground com­bat el­e­ment. Be­yond land­ing des­ti­na­tions, T&T’s con­tri­bu­tion al­so re­quires de­tails. On Tues­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar didn’t re­ply on whether there’s been any ap­proach to use T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies’ in­tel or oth­er­wise.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment tak­ing the US’ side had al­ready con­tra­dict­ed her For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ pre­ced­ing state­ment that T&T was “stay­ing out” of US-Venezuela is­sues - lat­est in­con­sis­ten­cy be­tween min­is­ters/PM ut­ter­ances.

Heat on the mat­ter showed on Wednes­day, the day Per­sad-Bisses­sar fell due to a shift­ing floor­board on the ground dur­ing a func­tion in Pe­nal (same dis­trict where PNM Min­is­ter Stu­art Young fell in 2020). She ac­knowl­edged she may “get dam­aged” for her “T&T First” push.

Em­u­lat­ing sim­i­lar US pol­i­cy and be­ing among the sup­port­ing ac­tors in star US cast won’t suf­fice lo­cal­ly. Some are bit­ter­ly af­fect­ed by Gov­ern­ment’s changed poli­cies. UNC mem­bers await op­por­tu­ni­ties. The pub­lic is see­ing more job cuts un­fold­ing. Gov­ern­ment’s acute aware­ness of un­steady” ground” has been shown in state­ments dom­i­nat­ed by “promise de­liv­ery” an­nounce­ments.

Af­ter the White House men­tion and T&T’s seat at the US “ta­ble,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments on se­cu­ri­ty al­liances be­ing ben­e­fi­cial in T&T’s crime fight, have raised pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tion of re­lief. Al­so: of im­me­di­ate con­cern by busi­ness groups who met last Wednes­day, is get­ting the US’ 15 per cent tar­iff on T&T ex­ports re­vert­ed to 10 per cent.

TTMA of­fi­cials say ur­gent ac­tion’s need­ed, “T&T’s in trade im­bal­ance ... We ex­port more (41 per cent) to the US than im­port, T&T’s tar­iff was hiked from 10 per cent to 15. Guyana’s was cut from 38 to 15. Cari­com/Latin Amer­i­ca have 10 per cent. The Prime Min­is­ter must use this US de­ploy­ment link to get tar­iffs back to 10 per cent.”

A Fi­nance of­fi­cial ad­vised, “Talks with the US are a work in progress. We’re in the ear­ly stages of diplo­mat­ic con­ver­sa­tions. Many oth­ers sim­i­lar­ly af­fect­ed would al­so be pur­su­ing this.”

Busi­ness­peo­ple want at­ten­tion, as they’re un­cer­tain if pos­si­ble dis­uni­ty on the US mis­sion af­fects T&T’s Cari­com mar­ket, ac­count­ing for al­most 10 per cent of ex­ports.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dis­tance from Cari­com was marked since her ab­sence from the Ju­ly con­fer­ence, where cur­rent chair­man, Ja­maica’s PM An­drew Hol­ness, cit­ed uni­ty and co­op­er­a­tion as Cari­com’s fu­ture. Re­gion­al views against the US buildup telegraphed by six Cari­com states in the Bo­li­var­i­an Al­liance for the Peo­ples of Our Amer­i­ca (AL­BA) group were fol­lowed by Bar­ba­dos PM Mia Mot­t­ley’s con­cerns and de­c­la­ra­tion that the re­gion must re­main a zone of peace. This was al­so echoed by An­tigua leader Gas­ton Browne.

Af­ter Cari­com’s In­de­pen­dence big-up and yes­ter­day’s vis­it by Grena­da PM Dick­on Mitchell, it’s ahead whether late Do­mini­can PM Eu­ge­nia Charles—who broke ground with US sup­port in Grena­da’s 1983 in­va­sion—has a 21st cen­tu­ry suc­ces­sor for her “Iron La­dy” ti­tle. And what gen­uine re­lief ar­rives by T&T’s 64th In­de­pen­dence.