DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an yes­ter­day hailed the “diplo­mat­ic suc­cess” of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) for se­cur­ing a meet­ing with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio so ear­ly in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The meet­ing, set for Wednes­day, will see Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young trav­el­ling to Ja­maica at the height of the coun­try’s elec­tion sea­son, ac­com­pa­nied by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne. The pair aim to strength­en T&T’s ties with both Cari­com and the US, while deep­en­ing re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, with Prime Min­is­ter Young re­main­ing tight-lipped about who will act in his ab­sence, spec­u­la­tion is mount­ing about his pre­pared­ness for such a crit­i­cal meet­ing just days af­ter he and his Cab­i­net were sworn in.

“It’s a hell of a test,” said re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal con­sul­tant and di­rec­tor of the lead­ing Caribbean po­lit­i­cal re­search com­pa­ny, Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Re­search Ser­vices (CADRES) Pe­ter Wick­ham.

As the Prime Min­is­ter pre­pares to tack­le this high-stakes diplo­mat­ic chal­lenge, Wick­ham ex­pressed con­fi­dence that Young can han­dle the pres­sure hav­ing re­ceived the en­dorse­ment of his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

“It’s clear­ly some­one that Dr Row­ley has con­sid­er­able con­fi­dence in, and the be­lief that he can take it on. But I tell you, it’s a hell of a test for him go­ing in as a prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date in the mid­dle of an elec­tion to have to fly to Ja­maica to take on a bat­tle as this. And in­deed, it will be a test. If he comes out of that test shin­ing, I think it will help him con­sid­er­ably in terms of his elec­tion bat­tle. He is demon­strat­ing an abil­i­ty to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an be­lieves this meet­ing is a big win for T&T—but on­ly if it de­liv­ers re­al re­sults. He al­so echoed op­ti­mism about the Prime Min­is­ter’s readi­ness for the task ahead.

“I have no doubt that he will be able to han­dle the job,” he said.

How­ev­er, he re­mained cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic about Cari­com’s abil­i­ty to in­flu­ence the US Gov­ern­ment on its stance to­ward hir­ing Cuban nurs­es—an is­sue the US Sec­re­tary of State has la­belled as “hu­man traf­fick­ing”—as well as se­cur­ing a con­crete up­date on the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol’s pol­i­cy re­gard­ing the ex­ist­ing li­cense for en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment with Venezuela through the Drag­on gas deal.

“If they suc­ceed in get­ting clar­i­ty on this is­sue so that it does not im­pose any ad­di­tion­al risk to our de­vel­op­ment and to our sov­er­eign­ty, I think it will be a great, great suc­cess. If it does not do that, then it will just be an act of rhetoric,” Dook­er­an said.

“Some as­sur­ances must be giv­en be­cause a re­gion al­ready starved from en­er­gy short­ages should not be sub­ject to fur­ther dis­tress by the US pol­i­cy on these is­sues,” he added.

Cari­com’s in­vi­ta­tion to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion comes af­ter Sec­re­tary of State Ru­bio threat­ened to im­pose visa re­stric­tions on Caribbean na­tions ac­cept­ing med­ical aid from Cuban nurs­es.

This diplo­mat­ic stand-off adds fur­ther weight to the up­com­ing talks, Wick­ham ex­plained, not­ing that the meet­ing is crit­i­cal to re­in­forc­ing Caribbean sov­er­eign­ty in a rapid­ly shift­ing geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape.

“I mean, the fun­da­men­tals of the oil and gas in Trinidad and To­ba­go and this deal with Venezuela is ab­solute­ly im­por­tant. Fun­da­men­tals for health is al­so im­por­tant. But I think there’s a fun­da­men­tal that al­so it has to speak to, which is the idea of sov­er­eign­ty and the idea of the fact that, you know, your for­eign pol­i­cy can al­low you to be friends of many peo­ple and not satel­lites of those peo­ple at the same time.”

Cari­com of­fi­cials, in a vir­tu­al meet­ing last Fri­day, laid the ground­work for Ru­bio’s vis­it. Ac­cord­ing to Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, key dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed Venezuela’s in­cur­sions in­to Guyana’s wa­ters, the role of Cuban work­ers in Cari­com na­tions, and the re­gion’s trade re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany be­lieves Young has enough in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence to han­dle a meet­ing of this scale, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the sup­port of the for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter.

He em­pha­sised that diplo­mat­ic talks re­main the best path for­ward.

“I think that the is­sue of ne­go­ti­at­ing with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is the way to go in terms of ad­dress­ing is­sues rather than sit­ting back and ap­ply­ing some kind of gener­ic thought process to say, ‘Well, this is what they’ve said, so that’s the end of the sto­ry’.”

At­tempts to con­tact Young and Browne for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful. Sim­i­lar­ly, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond up to late yes­ter­day.

PM Young to strength­en T&T-US ties in key for­eign pol­i­cy talks

Yes­ter­day, a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said dis­cus­sions will fo­cus on US for­eign pol­i­cy and its im­pact on T&T and the wider Caribbean. It de­scribed the meet­ing as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to strength­en ties be­tween T&T, Cari­com, and the Unit­ed States while ex­plor­ing ar­eas for deep­er co­op­er­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, Young sees the meet­ing as part of his com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing high-lev­el di­a­logue with the US ad­min­is­tra­tion for the ben­e­fit of T&T cit­i­zens.

The state­ment did not in­di­cate who would act as prime min­is­ter in Young’s ab­sence. It said For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne will ac­com­pa­ny him on the trip.