Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­ti­vat­ed what is be­ing de­scribed as the sec­ond phase of her Gov­ern­ment’s crime sup­pres­sion strat­e­gy, fol­low­ing high-lev­el talks with se­nior of­fi­cials from Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) in Do­ral, Flori­da, yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia has been told this next phase will place di­rect em­pha­sis on tack­ling crime on the ground in Trinidad and To­ba­go, sig­nalling a fo­cus on tar­get­ed do­mes­tic en­force­ment mea­sures.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing deep­er part­ner­ships and tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tions and bal­lis­tic analy­sis to en­hance the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions and im­prove crime-fight­ing ca­pac­i­ty.

“I made it clear at to­day’s meet­ing that my great­est pri­or­i­ty was to en­sure the pro­tec­tion of my cit­i­zens,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The meet­ing took place fol­low­ing an in­vi­ta­tion from the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment and in­clud­ed sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cials with­in SOUTH­COM’s lead­er­ship.

Among those in at­ten­dance were SOUTH­COM Com­man­der Gen­er­al Fran­cis L Dono­van; Deputy Com­man­der Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Evan Pet­tus; Am­bas­sador Stephanie Syptak-Ram­nath and Com­mand Se­nior En­list­ed Leader Sergeant Ma­jor Rafael Ro­driguez.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the dis­cus­sions were pro­duc­tive and cen­tred on strength­en­ing the long-stand­ing se­cu­ri­ty part­ner­ship be­tween the two coun­tries.

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that dur­ing the meet­ing, SOUTH­COM of­fi­cials ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for T&T’s lead­er­ship with­in the re­gion in the fight against nar­cotics traf­fick­ing. She said Gen­er­al Dono­van com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach and ac­knowl­edged that the coun­try’s ef­forts have had a mean­ing­ful im­pact on the broad­er re­gion­al cam­paign against the il­le­gal drug trade.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to ex­pand­ing part­ner­ships aimed at elim­i­nat­ing nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, de­scrib­ing the drug trade as a de­struc­tive force that has in­flict­ed sig­nif­i­cant harm on the coun­try.

“My main goal is to en­sure the to­tal erad­i­ca­tion of this plague that has brought grave de­struc­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the PM said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that dis­cus­sions with SOUTH­COM al­so ex­plored spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives that could fur­ther sup­port T&T’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty frame­work.

She said sev­er­al projects were iden­ti­fied dur­ing the meet­ing that could be im­ple­ment­ed as part of on­go­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two na­tions.

The PM did not de­tail what those “spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives” were.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was en­cour­aged by the will­ing­ness of SOUTH­COM’s lead­er­ship to broad­en the ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion to ad­dress emerg­ing se­cu­ri­ty threats across the re­gion.

“I am heart­ened not on­ly by South­ern Com­mand’s com­mit­ment to broad­en­ing the scope of work to en­sure a safer re­gion, but al­so by the fact that sev­er­al spe­cif­ic projects were iden­ti­fied for im­ple­men­ta­tion to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty,” she said.

At the con­clu­sion of the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to Gen­er­al Dono­van to vis­it T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, the SOUTH­COM com­man­der in­di­cat­ed that such a vis­it could be pos­si­ble be­fore the end of the year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the en­gage­ment forms part of what she de­scribed as her Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing push to se­cure every avail­able tool to con­front crim­i­nal el­e­ments threat­en­ing the coun­try.

“To­day’s meet­ing was part of my un­wa­ver­ing fight to en­sure all the tools pos­si­ble are avail­able to my Gov­ern­ment to crush the crim­i­nal el­e­ments which threat­en our cit­i­zens,” she said.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Wil­fred Mor­ris, who was part of the Prime Min­is­ter’s del­e­ga­tion along with Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, re­it­er­at­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­quests were met with favour from the US mil­i­tary of­fi­cials.

“The PM con­tin­ues to fight to en­sure a safer Trinidad and To­ba­go and the in­ter­na­tion­al stage through this meet­ing. Be­cause this meet­ing re­al­ly was geared to ex­tend that part­ner­ship so you could bring safer com­mu­ni­ties, safer vil­lages and a safer coun­try. At that board­room, at that board ta­ble to­day, it was a dis­cus­sion on how we could make a safer Trinidad and To­ba­go through part­ner­ship with our longest and strongest al­ly,” Mor­ris said.

Ac­cord­ing to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, the Do­ral Char­ter signed dur­ing the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit last Sat­ur­day pro­claims that the US will train and mo­bilise part­ner na­tion mil­i­taries to achieve the most ef­fec­tive fight­ing force nec­es­sary to dis­man­tle car­tels.

The of­fi­cial white pa­per de­tail­ing ex­act­ly what the Char­ter en­tails has not yet been re­leased to the pub­lic.