Gail Alexan­der

Yes­ter­day’s replies by Min­is­ters to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions ran the usu­al roller coast­er route, al­though Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s an­nounce­ment on T&TEC work­ers’ cost of liv­ing pay­ments up­staged Op­po­si­tion moves.

There was al­so an­tic­i­pa­tion of big­ger things to come, as loud Gov­ern­ment desk-thump­ing ac­com­pa­nied the in­tro­duc­tion of the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 to Par­lia­ment’s Or­der Pa­per. The Gov­ern­ment there­fore con­tin­ued its pro­file en­hance­ment, set­tling the “ground” and ful­fill­ing cam­paign promis­es af­ter crime trends showed some un­daunt­ed cul­prits.

The Gov­ern­ment’s hard­line thrust re­gard­ing pro­tec­tion al­so emerged with Thurs­day’s Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der for a busi­ness­man with an al­leged elec­tion cam­paign role with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. It is ahead what fall­out en­sues. The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment con­firmed that, to its knowl­edge, the per­son had no con­nec­tion to its April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign.

Gov­ern­ment’s pro­tec­tion thrust is in sync with what is oc­cur­ring around T&T, now star­ring in the Wall Street Jour­nal as “The tiny is­land which be­came a flash­point in the Trump-Maduro show­down.”

How­ev­er, T&T cit­i­zens had to learn about this week’s US/T&T joint train­ing ex­er­cise via the UK Fi­nan­cial Times, to which At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­vealed the de­vel­op­ment. News­day’s re­port of Je­re­mie “dri­ving past re­porters out­side of the Red House” await­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the ex­er­cise, then, on con­tact­ing him, be­ing in­formed of a For­eign Af­fairs press con­fer­ence about it, was the lat­est telling point re­gard­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s dis­clo­sure and com­mu­ni­ca­tion process to the nec­es­sary pri­or­i­ty au­di­ence— cit­i­zens.

It demon­strat­ed how an alarm can be spread with­out ap­pro­pri­ate con­veyance. So much so that the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry’s as­sur­ances did not quell spec­u­la­tion that the ex­er­cise was re­lat­ed to US/Venezuela is­sues, with neigh­bour­ing T&T be­ing used as a base or stag­ing area for is­su­ing sig­nals to Venezuela.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s ut­ter­ances com­pound­ed con­fu­sion, as cit­i­zens cit­ed loud, low-fly­ing he­li­copters, oth­er air­craft, and word of US mil­i­tary ves­sels and war­ships around T&T’s coasts.

Lat­est US mil­i­tary videos de­tailed drills be­ing prac­tised else­where “in sup­port of the US South­ern Com­mand’s mis­sion, De­part­ment of War-di­rect­ed op­er­a­tions and the Pres­i­dent’s pri­or­i­ties,” the videos stat­ed: Marines’ Ki­lo Com­pa­ny Bat­tal­ion fast rope in­ser­tion train­ing with an MH-60S Sea Hawk he­li­copter and am­phibi­ous as­sault ship USS Iwo Ji­ma; USMC F-35B Light­ning II fly­ing op­er­a­tions; Mar­itime Spe­cial Pur­pose Force 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Ca­pa­ble) train­ing dur­ing a chem­i­cal, bi­o­log­i­cal, ra­di­o­log­i­cal, and nu­clear de­fence train­ing ex­er­cise in Puer­to Ri­co; US Air Force B-52H Strato­fortress long-range strate­gic bombers con­duct­ing at­tack demon­stra­tion.

De­spite US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ex­pressed open­ness to Venezuela’s re­quest­ed talks, his re­marks, tone, and US ac­tiv­i­ties sig­nal Amer­i­ca’s firm, mis­sion-fo­cused pos­ture.

On Tues­day, the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion is­sued a new tem­po­rary flight ad­vi­so­ry (on a “po­ten­tial­ly haz­ardous” sit­u­a­tion) for all of Puer­to Ri­co “and a large sec­tion of the South­ern Caribbean,” ad­vis­ing op­er­a­tors to ex­er­cise “ex­treme cau­tion” there “due to in­crease in state air­craft op­er­a­tions,” with the no­tice to air mis­sions be­gin­ning No­vem­ber 18, 2025 and last­ing un­til Feb­ru­ary 16, 2026.

Venezue­lan of­fi­cials re­main open, await­ing US talks, cog­nisant of US war­ships around. “It’s provo­ca­tion,” they have said.

Lo­cal­ly, fall­out con­tin­ues. While Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh was at the COP30 cli­mate change sum­mit, Cari­com an­nounced six new Min­is­te­r­i­al Leads for the meet­ing, “re­in­forc­ing its uni­fied stance on cli­mate jus­tice and re­silience,” Cari­com stat­ed. Cari­com’s po­si­tion for di­a­logue rather than dis­pu­ta­tion al­so echoed in Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s Tues­day ad­dress to the diplo­mat­ic corps, where Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador is Dean.

What­ev­er is ahead, Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and oth­ers left yes­ter­day (Fri­day) for week-long Dubai Gov­ern­ment meet­ings on T&T’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, of­fi­cials in the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry said.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, emerg­ing with an of­fice as the for­mer PM, with in­formed views, has re­in­forced the PNM’s po­si­tion con­cern­ing Gov­ern­ment man­age­ment in a sit­u­a­tion where PNM de­fi­cien­cies could con­tin­ue aid­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s strength. And with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s in­di­ca­tion against a Christ­mas THA elec­tion, Jan­u­ary polls, spec­u­lat­ed here last week, con­tin­ue as a pos­si­bil­i­ty.