Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go high com­mis­sion­er to In­dia Dave Per­sad is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of go­ing too far in try­ing to please the Unit­ed States, warn­ing that prag­ma­tism should not be­come “grov­el­ling” at the ex­pense of the coun­try’s dig­ni­ty and self-re­spect.

Per­sad, an at­tor­ney and for­mer diplo­mat, made the crit­i­cism in a com­men­tary ex­am­in­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to the 81st Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York last week and her Gov­ern­ment’s in­creas­ing­ly close re­la­tion­ship with the US.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered T&T’s na­tion­al state­ment to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Sep­tem­ber 22, as the coun­try pre­pares to take up a non-per­ma­nent seat on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for 2027-2028.

Per­sad ar­gued that while the Prime Min­is­ter has good rea­son to care­ful­ly nav­i­gate re­la­tions with Wash­ing­ton, there is a point at which prag­ma­tism can go too far.

“In fair­ness, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­serves some un­der­stand­ing, even cred­it and ap­plause,” Per­sad said.

“She reads cor­rect­ly our coun­try’s place in a shift­ing geopo­lit­i­cal or­der and un­der­stands how vul­ner­a­ble we are, mil­i­tar­i­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly, next to a su­per­pow­er. She is prag­mat­ic.”

Per­sad said prag­ma­tism is broad­ly about judg­ing ideas by their prac­ti­cal con­se­quences, but ar­gued that this should not re­quire T&T to sac­ri­fice its in­de­pen­dence or dig­ni­ty.

Point­ing out that prag­ma­tism has lim­its, he said, “Stoop­ing to con­quer the Drag­on gas does not re­quire grov­el­ling be­fore the world. When a leader grov­els, it is the peo­ple who ab­sorb the hu­mil­i­a­tion.”

Per­sad sin­gled out the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion dur­ing her UN ad­dress to en­dorse US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s call for ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to in­stead be called “su­per in­tel­li­gence.”

Dur­ing the ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she agreed with Trump’s pro­pos­al and then re­peat­ed­ly used “su­per in­tel­li­gence” and “SI” while out­lin­ing T&T’s pri­or­i­ties on emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy and in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Per­sad de­scribed that en­dorse­ment as an ex­am­ple of what he be­lieves crossed the line from prag­ma­tism in­to ex­ces­sive def­er­ence.

“Pres­i­dent Trump had bare­ly fin­ished sug­gest­ing that ‘ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence’ be re­brand­ed ‘su­per in­tel­li­gence’ when our Prime Min­is­ter com­mit­ted the en­tire na­tion to it,” he said.

“That is grov­el­ling at its low­est.”

Per­sad al­so con­trast­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ap­proach with Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, ar­gu­ing that a small Caribbean coun­try can pur­sue its in­ter­ests while main­tain­ing an in­de­pen­dent voice on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

He said there was “no ex­cuse” for lead­ers of small and medi­um-sized coun­tries to al­low geopo­lit­i­cal pres­sures to erode na­tion­al dig­ni­ty.

“There is no ex­cuse for the lead­ers of small and medi­um-sized states, in the face of the tec­ton­ic shifts now re­shap­ing glob­al pol­i­tics, to grov­el and let their na­tions lose their self-re­spect, dig­ni­ty and in­tegri­ty,” Per­sad said.

“A small na­tion can steer care­ful­ly through rough wa­ters with­out sur­ren­der­ing its dig­ni­ty.”

He al­so ad­dressed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s im­prov­ing re­la­tion­ship with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

The two lead­ers met on the side­lines of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York, with their gov­ern­ments sub­se­quent­ly de­clar­ing the be­gin­ning of a “new era in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.” Venezuela al­so con­firmed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was again con­sid­ered per­sona gra­ta, re­vers­ing the po­si­tion tak­en dur­ing a pe­ri­od of diplo­mat­ic ten­sions in 2025.

Per­sad, how­ev­er, ar­gued that both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez had adopt­ed an over­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ing pos­ture to­wards Wash­ing­ton, de­scrib­ing their UN ap­pear­ances as be­ing “aimed chiefly at pleas­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.”