Her Ex­cel­len­cy Can­dace A. Bond, the new­ly-ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, has said Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a pri­or­i­ty in US for­eign pol­i­cy.

Am­bas­sador Bond made the state­ment dur­ing her cour­tesy call to the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs on Thurs­day, De­cem­ber 8, at the Min­istry’s head­quar­ters at Pra­da Street, St. Clair.  Her Ex­cel­len­cy met with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young MP, who is act­ing as For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter while Dr Amery Browne is out of the coun­try on State busi­ness.

The cour­tesy call took place pri­or to Am­bas­sador Bond’s pre­sen­ta­tion of her Let­ters of Cre­dence to Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula-Mae Weekes O.R.T.T., Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Com­man­der in Chief of the Armed Forces, which took place at Pres­i­dent’s House lat­er that morn­ing.

“Am­bas­sador Bond in­formed that Trinidad and To­ba­go—and by ex­ten­sion the Caribbean—con­tin­ue to hold very high pri­or­i­ty for the for­eign pol­i­cy of Unit­ed States,” a re­lease from the Min­istry re­port­ed.

“Her Ex­cel­len­cy in turn stat­ed that she is look­ing for­ward to fu­ture en­gage­ments with the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go to bol­ster the al­ready strong re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries,” it added.

The re­lease al­so not­ed that Min­is­ter Young ex­tend­ed a warm wel­come to Am­bas­sador Bond and ac­knowl­edged the very friend­ly and long-stand­ing re­la­tions be­tween the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, not­ing that the Unit­ed States re­mains this coun­try’s largest trade part­ner and that strong ties al­so ex­ist in the se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy sec­tors.

“The Min­is­ter fur­ther ex­pressed that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go was ea­ger to fur­ther strength­en the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries un­der Am­bas­sador Bond’s stew­ard­ship. He ac­knowl­edged the out­stand­ing work of the Em­bassy of the Unit­ed States, pre­ced­ing the ar­rival of the new Am­bas­sador and ex­pressed his con­fi­dence that this would con­tin­ue un­der Am­bas­sador Bond’s tenure,” the Min­istry not­ed in the re­lease.

Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s hus­band, Steven Brent Mc Keev­er, and her daugh­ter Mad­dox Bond Mc Keev­er, both ex­pressed their plea­sure to be in Trinidad and To­ba­go.  They had ac­com­pa­nied Am­bas­sador Bond on the cour­tesy call.

The Min­istry al­so re­ports that the meet­ing end­ed cor­dial­ly with both par­ties com­mit­ting to fur­ther ac­tive en­gage­ment on bi­lat­er­al is­sues of mu­tu­al in­ter­est in the near fu­ture.