Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from UN­GA,

New York

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in the Unit­ed States this evening on her first in­ter­na­tion­al trip since tak­ing of­fice, ahead of her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 80th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) and re­lat­ed events.

The Prime Min­is­ter is sched­uled to ad­dress the UN­GA to­mor­row and has high-lev­el meet­ings with Unit­ed States rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the side­lines there­after.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the UN Head­quar­ters in New York yes­ter­day, de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s agen­da as a “packed one”.

“The PM will be meet­ing with the Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. She’ll be meet­ing with the Emir of Kuwait. The PM will be meet­ing with the US. And she will be en­gag­ing the di­as­po­ra while she’s here as well,” Sobers con­firmed.

He added, “As you may or may not know, we have our pro­gramme to plan for the seat that we’ll be tak­ing as non-per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. So, we have a lot of dis­cus­sions that have to go in­to that as well.”

Sobers said there will be two meet­ings with the US, one sched­uled for Mon­day, and an­oth­er pend­ing con­fir­ma­tion.

Pressed on which US rep­re­sen­ta­tives the PM will be meet­ing with, Sobers would on­ly say, “High-lev­el rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State De­part­ment.”

Yes­ter­day, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio and Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali held dis­cus­sions. Ac­cord­ing to Pres­i­dent Ali, the meet­ing fo­cused on “ad­vanc­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty in the fight against nar­co-ter­ror­ism and transna­tion­al crimes.”

On Sep­tem­ber 5, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke with Deputy State Sec­re­tary Christo­pher Lan­dau via tele­phone. At the time, the PM told Guardian Me­dia, “A face-to-face meet­ing was pro­posed by Mr Lan­dau to be held on the mar­gins of the UN­GA.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of US ac­tions to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing in the Caribbean.

Fol­low­ing a fa­tal US mil­i­tary strike on a ves­sel sus­pect­ed of drug traf­fick­ing in the south­ern Caribbean, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment ex­press­ing sup­port for the ac­tion and the broad­er US naval de­ploy­ment in the re­gion. She stat­ed that she had “no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers” and that “the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” cit­ing the im­mense pain and suf­fer­ing that car­tels have in­flict­ed on Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The PM has al­so de­fend­ed this coun­try’s de­ci­sion to co­op­er­ate with the US on this mat­ter, stat­ing that while oth­er Cari­com na­tions may dis­agree with the US ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pol­i­tics, her Gov­ern­ment is fo­cused on what is best for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John will act as Prime Min­is­ter un­til Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­turn from the US.