The five Caribbean lead­ers in­vit­ed to meet US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to­day are mem­bers of the Li­ma Group whose ob­jec­tive is regime change in Venezuela.

That's the view of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who has brushed off T&T's ex­clu­sion from Trump's meet­ing with the lead­ers of Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Haiti, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and the Ba­hamas to­day.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing and re­spond­ing to whether he felt the meet­ing may be an at­tempt by the US to co­a­lesce some Caribbean na­tions to agree with mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion in Venezuela, Row­ley replied in the neg­a­tive.

The lead­ers were in­vit­ed by Trump to meet at his Mar-a La­go, Flori­da home. US me­dia stat­ed it's a "thank you" to lead­ers for their sup­port "for peace and democ­ra­cy in Venezuela" and those dis­cus­sions will fo­cus on strength­en­ing co-op­er­a­tion on se­cu­ri­ty and trade is­sues.

Apart from Row­ley, the meet­ing ex­clud­ed Cari­com chair­man St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter Tim­o­thy Har­ris and Bar­ba­dos PM Mia Mot­t­ley, who were all in­volved in re­cent ef­forts to achieve a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to Venezuela's cri­sis. T&T and Cari­com hold a non-in­ter­ven­tion po­si­tion. But Gov­ern­ment's state­ments on the mat­ter last month were viewed with "con­cern" by US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo. Row­ley, who took um­brage, pro­ceed­ed with Cari­com to seek peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of Venezuela's cri­sis.

On whether the five coun­tries at­tend­ing Trump's meet­ing had con­sult­ed Cari­com on it, Row­ley said T&T wasn't con­sult­ed and wasn't aware un­til it was an­nounced. Nor was Cari­com's sec­re­tari­at able to say it was be­fore Cari­com for con­sid­er­a­tion. He said the ac­tion of any Cari­com mem­bers act­ing out­side of Cari­com was their own.

He added, "There are peo­ple in T&T who be­lieve be­cause T&T wasn't in­vit­ed to the pri­vate home of an Amer­i­can pres­i­dent, we're some­how di­min­ished!

"A man's home is his cas­tle - you free to in­vite who you want to your house. We can't stay out­side and say we shoul­da be in­vit­ed. Since when are we mea­sur­ing our stature and sta­tion by who in­vites us to their house?"

"But we've nev­er stood taller or stood proud­er. If it is we're be­ing 'blanked' or 'snubbed' for stead­fast­ly stand­ing for the prin­ci­ples of the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter, his­to­ry will ab­solve us," he said, de­tail­ing the Char­ter's prin­ci­ples to which T&T has been a sig­na­to­ry since 1962.

Say­ing the Char­ter was the ba­sis of T&T's non-in­ter­ven­tion po­si­tion on Venezuela, he added, "Ar­ti­cle Two of the Char­ter is where the terms 'non-in­ter­ven­tion and non-in­ter­fer­ence' came from, I Kei­th Row­ley didn't in­vent those terms."

Not­ing that the Cari­com del­e­ga­tion of which he was a part was au­tho­rised to rep­re­sent Cari­com, he said there are 14 Cari­com coun­tries.

"Yet the con­ver­sa­tion is about four," he said of lead­ers at­tend­ing Trump's meet­ing and not­ing the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic isn't a Cari­com state.

"There are 14 Cari­com coun­tries, how many have gone to Mar -a-La­go? The ones who've agreed are part of the Li­ma Group. What's the group's ob­jec­tive? Regime change in Venezuela. How that's to be achieved is for those who've em­barked on that course."

The Li­ma Group al­so in­cludes Latin states which sup­port­ed Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do against em­bat­tled Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro.

Row­ley said T&T, St Kitts, Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent didn't sign on to the Li­ma Group

"Our for­eign pol­i­cy has al­ways giv­en us an in­di­ca­tion of the road ahead. What we're re­act­ing to is an in­vi­ta­tion to a man's house - a meet­ing of the Li­ma Group at the pri­vate res­i­dence of the US Pres­i­dent."

He said the Li­ma Group's de­ci­sion-mak­ing had to­tal­ly ig­nored Cari­com.

De­spite Trump's meet­ing, Row­ley said there was no need to re­mind the four Cari­com coun­tries of Cari­com's po­si­tion on Venezuela: non-in­ter­ven­tion and peace­ful res­o­lu­tion. He said at the re­cent Cari­com In­ter­s­es­sion­al Venezuela was dis­cussed and "peo­ple had all kinds of po­si­tions." But he said all Cari­com mem­bers vot­ed to sup­port Cari­com's po­si­tion and that re­sult­ed in Cari­com's del­e­ga­tion at­tend­ing over­seas meet­ings on Venezuela.

"Since then we had con­tact with Cana­da and Eu­rope and now some of our mem­bers have gone to the US. (Venezuela) is an is­sue we need to talk about - not fight about," he not­ed.

Nor did Row­ley feel the sit­u­a­tion might strain T&T's re­la­tion­ship with the US.

On the tim­ing of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's meet­ing with the US Am­bas­sador the same day Trump's meet­ing was an­nounced, Row­ley said the US Am­bas­sador was free to talk to any­one,

"...And I have every con­fi­dence that in sober re­flec­tion, the Op­po­si­tion Leader will fa­mil­iarise her­self with the po­si­tion of the then Bar­ba­di­an Op­po­si­tion leader Er­rol Bar­row dur­ing the Grena­da in­va­sion," he added.