Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter ac­cus­ing Cari­com of be­tray­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment will now look to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­align its for­eign pol­i­cy with a fo­cus on coun­tries out­side of the re­gion.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed that she does not view Cari­com as a “re­li­able part­ner” and said that over the next “cou­ple of years,” there will be a “sig­nif­i­cant re­align­ment” of this coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

The Prime Min­is­ter said, “These changes are nec­es­sary for im­prov­ing our eco­nom­ic and phys­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty.”

Asked if her ad­min­is­tra­tion would seek to of­fi­cial­ly with­draw T&T from the re­gion­al body, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “That has not been con­sid­ered.”

In­stead, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained that this re­align­ment would mean fo­cus­ing main­ly on in­creas­ing link­ages and co­op­er­a­tion with coun­tries out­side the re­gion.

“We need to look for new part­ners in trade, in­vest­ment, and se­cu­ri­ty,” she said.

When asked if any Cari­com lead­ers have reached out to her since she ex­pressed her feel­ings of be­tray­al, the Prime Min­is­ter would on­ly say, “I main­tain cor­dial re­la­tions with all my Cari­com col­leagues. Our prayers are with the peo­ple of Ja­maica at this time. To­day, we are con­tin­u­ing arrange­ments for re­lief sup­plies to be sent there.”

On Mon­day, speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on the Crime Watch pro­gramme, Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the lack of re­gion­al sup­port for T&T’s en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed States (US) naval as­sets in the Caribbean. She said, “Cari­com is prov­ing to be an un­re­li­able part­ner in some re­gards be­cause they chose Venezuela over Trinidad. They chose Venezuela over Trinidad, and that is some­thing we need to re­mem­ber.”

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­cent­ly re­served its po­si­tion on a Cari­com state­ment reaf­firm­ing the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, a move that set it apart from oth­er mem­ber states, all of whom sup­port­ed the reaf­fir­ma­tion.

T&T’s busi­ness with Cari­com is dom­i­nat­ed by the trade of goods, where this coun­try typ­i­cal­ly holds a sig­nif­i­cant trade sur­plus with its re­gion­al part­ners.

Its main ex­ports to Cari­com coun­tries gen­er­al­ly in­clude min­er­al fu­els, lu­bri­cants, and re­lat­ed ma­te­ri­als (for ex­am­ple, pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts) as well as chem­i­cals and re­lat­ed prod­ucts (am­mo­nia, petro­chem­i­cals), man­u­fac­tured goods (iron and steel prod­ucts), and food and bev­er­ages.

T&T is al­so a found­ing and ac­tive mem­ber of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), fo­cus­ing on the re­moval of trade bar­ri­ers and deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion.

This coun­try is a key con­trib­u­tor to and par­tic­i­pant in re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) and the Cari­com De­vel­op­ment Fund (CDF).