Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Don­ald Trump Unit­ed States (US) ad­min­is­tra­tion has hailed Trinidad and To­ba­go as an al­ly in its fight against Venezue­lan and Mex­i­can drug car­tels in the re­gion.

Speak­ing at a Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio told Pres­i­dent Trump, “For the first time in the mod­ern era, we are tru­ly on of­fence against or­gan­ised car­tels that are pump­ing poi­son, killer poi­son, in­to our cities.”

The US now has a height­ened naval pres­ence in the south­ern Caribbean, which it says is part of an an­ti-drug traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in the re­gion. The US has ac­cused Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro of “nar­co-ter­ror­ism,” and the de­ploy­ment is a di­rect re­sponse to this ac­cu­sa­tion.

The US has al­so stat­ed that its forces are op­er­at­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, while Maduro has con­demned the de­ploy­ment as a vi­o­la­tion of sov­er­eign­ty and a threat to re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.

Ru­bio yes­ter­day told Pres­i­dent Trump that since this ini­tia­tive has be­gun, the US has re­ceived “in­cred­i­ble eco­nom­ic, in­ter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion.”

“Coun­tries just in the last week, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guyana, Trinidad, to­day Ar­genti­na, all join­ing us or try­ing to be help­ful in ad­vanc­ing this,” Ru­bio re­vealed.

At yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing, Ru­bio de­clared that the US is not on­ly go­ing to stop drugs from com­ing in­to its coun­try but build part­ner­ships with its al­lies while do­ing so.

“An­oth­er thing is to build an in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion against the scourge on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage,” Ru­bio stat­ed.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pub­licly de­clared her Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port for the US’ de­ploy­ment of naval ves­sels in the Caribbean, say­ing she has no hes­i­ta­tion in wel­com­ing US as­sis­tance to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so said that whether the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or Cari­com likes it or not, the US has the ca­pac­i­ty to dis­rupt these drug net­works.

The PM said to part­ner with Amer­i­ca is not to un­der­mine the Caribbean re­gion but to de­fend it. She told Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, “The truth is the Caribbean is al­ready on fire, en­gulfed by the flames of il­lic­it drug, gun and arms traf­fick­ing.”

Guyana is al­so back­ing the US naval pres­ence, say­ing it sup­ports “con­cert­ed ef­forts at the na­tion­al, re­gion­al, hemi­spher­ic and glob­al lev­els” to com­bat in­ter­na­tion­al crimes and dis­man­tle or­gan­ised crime groups, specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enc­ing the “Car­tel de los Soles” in Venezuela.

Ini­tial­ly, the US de­ployed three naval ves­sels, the USS San An­to­nio, USS Iwo Ji­ma and USS Fort Laud­erdale, to the Caribbean. It was then re­port­ed that two more ves­sels (USS Lake Erie and USS New­port News) were de­ployed and should be in the Caribbean re­gion by ear­ly next week.

Venezuela has con­demned the move and has de­mand­ed the im­me­di­ate ces­sa­tion of the mil­i­tary as­sets.