RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Works Jear­lean John has sought to re­as­sure man­u­fac­tur­ers and ex­porters that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) re­mains strong, even as re­gion­al ten­sions es­ca­late fol­low­ing re­cent pub­lic ex­changes among lead­ers.

Her re­marks come af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Cari­com as “dys­func­tion­al,” com­ments that drew strong re­spons­es across the re­gion, in­clud­ing from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne, who em­pha­sised that Trinidad and To­ba­go ben­e­fits sig­nif­i­cant­ly from Cari­com trade.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the open­ing of the St Mary’s Po­lice Sta­tion, Min­is­ter John ad­dressed con­cerns that lo­cal busi­ness­es could face eco­nom­ic fall­out in the new year. She de­scribed the gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach as de­lib­er­ate and mea­sured.

“Our gov­ern­ment, led by our Prime Min­is­ter, is firm, pur­pose­ful, and in­ten­tion­al, but she’s not reck­less,” John said.

She ex­plained that the gov­ern­ment’s re­cent state­ments were made thought­ful­ly, re­flect­ing re­al­i­ties that need­ed to be ad­dressed open­ly. “These are things that have to be said by the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is what peo­ple know, so they have to be said,” she stat­ed.

John was clear that the sit­u­a­tion should not be in­ter­pret­ed as hos­til­i­ty to­ward Cari­com or its cit­i­zens.

“So we are go­ing to con­tin­ue on, but this is not against any Cari­com mem­ber or its peo­ple. We are all Cari­com peo­ple, and we love our peo­ple,” she said.

She al­so high­light­ed Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s long-stand­ing re­gion­al con­nec­tions as ev­i­dence of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s com­mit­ment to Cari­com.

“I love my peo­ple, and I know the Prime Min­is­ter—she went to school in Bar­ba­dos, worked there, and is very proud of the time she spent in Ja­maica. She’s a Caribbean woman, and that’s why she’s in this role,” John added.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing Gas­ton Browne, that Trinidad and To­ba­go de­rives ma­jor ben­e­fits from Cari­com trade, John ac­knowl­edged the coun­try’s strong ex­port per­for­mance but framed it as a mat­ter of com­pet­i­tive­ness rather than im­bal­ance.

“And of course, we un­der­stand that a lot of our ex­ports go to Cari­com, and we are proud of that. We are very com­pet­i­tive as Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said. She added that the coun­try’s prod­ucts suc­ceed re­gion­al­ly be­cause of their qual­i­ty and pric­ing. “If the prod­ucts that go out are high qual­i­ty and the prices are com­pet­i­tive, we are in a po­si­tion where peo­ple can buy from any­where,” John ex­plained.

Of­fer­ing re­as­sur­ance di­rect­ly to busi­ness own­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers con­cerned about un­cer­tain­ty in re­gion­al mar­kets, she ex­pressed con­fi­dence that trade re­la­tions would en­dure. “We are very sure that, based on fa­mil­ial and his­tor­i­cal ties, and the qual­i­ty of what we do, we will con­tin­ue to score big with Cari­com busi­ness,” John said.

She con­clud­ed with a mes­sage aimed at re­gion­al part­ners and stake­hold­ers: “And I want to tell Cari­com—we love them. Of course, we are part of that net­work; we are from here.”