Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne to­day met with the new­ly-ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Can­dace Bond, at the Min­istry’s of­fices at Pra­da Street, St. Clair.

A state­ment by the min­istry said that al­though Min­is­ter Browne had met the US Am­bas­sador pre­vi­ous­ly, this meet­ing was his first for­mal ex­change with Am­bas­sador Bond at the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs. "The Min­is­ter ex­tend­ed a very warm wel­come to Am­bas­sador Bond and ac­knowl­edged the friend­ly and long-stand­ing re­la­tions be­tween the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Min­is­ter Browne and Am­bas­sador Bond had can­did dis­cus­sion on a wide range of top­ics in­clud­ing the ex­port of cul­tur­al el­e­ments of Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly, so­ca, to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, the use of dig­i­tal plat­forms and re­lat­ed is­sues; crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go and pos­si­ble in­crease in se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the coun­tries to com­bat vi­o­lent crime; mi­gra­tion and the treat­ment of mi­grants; and ad­vi­sories on trav­el to Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er re­ports pub­lished by the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment," the state­ment said. It added that Am­bas­sador Bond as­sured the min­is­ter of her com­mit­ment to deep­er en­gage­ment with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to ad­dress the con­cerns high­light­ed by Min­is­ter Browne and to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for more col­lab­o­ra­tion and con­sul­ta­tion.

"The cor­dial and pro­duc­tive meet­ing end­ed with both par­ties com­mit­ting to fur­ther ac­tive en­gage­ment on bi­lat­er­al is­sues of mu­tu­al in­ter­est in the near fu­ture," the state­ment said.