What­ev­er Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion dif­fer­ences on the fi­nan­cial crime pre­ven­tion bills de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, both have cel­e­brat­ed Thurs­day’s gold and sil­ver mo­ments by sports meis­ters Keshorn “King” Wal­cott and Ja­reem “The Dream” Richards.

Feel­ings would be tem­pered by the death of re­spect­ed med­ical pro­fes­sion­al Dr Dorothy Williams-Chan­dler, who served T&T for decades af­ter leav­ing Ja­maica.

Wal­cott’s win is a high point for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in whose first term Wal­cott se­cured his 2012 Olympic gold. Both are come­back “kids” cre­at­ing his­to­ry in their re­spec­tive fields—now more glob­al­ly than ever. Wal­cott, ul­tra-T&T top grade; Per­sad-Bisses­sar, steely sec­ond-time fe­male PM.

If their for­tunes ap­peared linked, is­sues for both are clear. Whether Wal­cott heads to the 2028 Olympics; Per­sad-Bisses­sar, fit­ting cre­ative man­age­ment to T&T’s dif­fi­cul­ties amid in­ter­na­tion­al lime­light for more than Wal­cott and Richards’ vic­to­ries.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est test in­volves next week’s Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly de­but, where she’ll be dou­bly spot­light­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly by US me­dia, for T&T’s place in the US’ coali­tion against drug car­tels—where T&T’s so far a mi­nor­i­ty in Cari­com.

With Cari­com di­vid­ed and most in­sis­tent that the re­gion re­main a zone of peace, and against mil­i­tary pres­ence, US coali­tion part­ner Guyana—af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s colour­ful sup­port for US ac­tions—has bal­anced its pro-peace zone po­si­tion by main­tain­ing that the nar­co-traf­fick­ing fight is vi­tal.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s fine­ly honed UN ad­dress, tem­pered with diplo­ma­cy, will em­pha­sise T&T’s po­si­tion on the is­sues—mi­nus “car­cass” ver­biage, it’s un­der­stood.

Some Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged that UNC Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der’s claim of “In­dia nuk­ing Venezuela for T&T,” was ill-timed amid re­gion­al ten­sions. Telling­ly, the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion had no com­ment on Alexan­der’s claim, which he sub­se­quent­ly re­cant­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s modus operan­di for the UN was pre­viewed at Thurs­day’s UN De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme func­tion, where her cor­dial in­ter­ac­tion—lit­er­al­ly close as one pic­ture showed—with Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero (diplo­mat­ic corps dean) was dis­played.

With sim­mer­ing re­gion­al ten­sions, UNDP’s theme was fit­ting: “Un­der pres­sure,” re­cal­i­brat­ing fu­ture re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment. As was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress theme: “Lead­er­ship Un­der Pres­sure and Op­por­tu­ni­ty in Cri­sis.”

Her con­clu­sion mes­saged be­yond the func­tion in­volv­ing Venezuela’s and oth­er coun­tries’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Like­ly to po­ten­tial UN au­di­ences al­so: “Un­der pres­sure, Trinidad and To­ba­go will not re­treat. We will lead,” the PM de­clared. The length of her (six-day) US stay hints at the depth of her pro­gramme, rais­ing ex­pec­ta­tion of pos­i­tive “re­turns.”

Whether it’s se­cu­ri­ty or trade/in­vest­ment, af­ter man­u­fac­tur­ers sought their own strat­e­gy to deal with the US’ 15 per cent tar­iff on T&T ex­ports, en­cour­age­ment has come from Cana­da for busi­ness­es and T&T Trade Min­is­ter Ka­ma Ma­haraj to in­crease T&T’s pro­file there. En­tre­pre­neurs point to very lim­it­ed di­as­po­ra dis­trib­u­tors and there­fore a lack of va­ri­ety of T&T prod­ucts, and price of goods—(Can) $35 per pound for pi­men­tos, $7-8 (callaloo bush), $4.99 (im­port weath­ered Julie man­go).

Rev­enue in­flow’s key to Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get, ex­pect­ed on Oc­to­ber 6, af­ter PM re­turns.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­ready telegraphed chal­lenges for the Bud­get, ex­pect­ed to be big­ger than the $59.741 bil­lion of 2025. Funds are al­so re­quired for Gov­ern­ment’s set­tle­ment with firearms deal­er Brent Thomas.

Al­so loom­ing is Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion on the State of Emer­gency, in­sti­tut­ed Ju­ly 18. It’s giv­en law en­force­ment of­fi­cers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­tain il­le­gal items, al­leged cul­prits, and in­tel trails.

Since the US’ sub­stan­tial mil­i­tary pres­ence isn’t mov­ing and it’s re­gard­ed as more than for curb­ing car­tels, whether this even­tu­al­ly trig­gers fall­out re­quir­ing SoE ex­ten­sion is ahead. So far, Gov­ern­ment sources hint, it may not be ex­tend­ed.

If Gov­ern­ment, at Tues­day’s Sen­ate, cap­i­talised on PNM di­vi­sion, main­tained by PN­Mite Colm Im­bert’s con­tin­u­ous harp­ing on “mis­takes” un­der Im­bert’s past gov­ern­ment led by Dr Kei­th Row­ley, last night’s at­ten­dance at PNM’s $1,500 Hy­att “Sep­tem­ber to Re­mem­ber” fundrais­er showed PNM uni­ty/heal­ing.

Or if sharp­er strat­e­gy than blam­ing and apol­o­gis­ing are re­quired to make PNM mem­o­rable. Of­fi­cials said 600 tick­ets were is­sued “with calls for more”—but 800 were is­sued in 2024.