Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned cit­i­zens against pub­lic at­tacks on the Unit­ed States, ar­gu­ing the crit­i­cism is hyp­o­crit­i­cal in a coun­try where over 350,000 na­tion­als have US visas or dual cit­i­zen­ship. 

Speak­ing at the Christ­mas Sup­per at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as se­lec­tive out­rage di­rect­ed at the US by peo­ple who ben­e­fit from ac­cess to that coun­try.

“I think it is the height of hypocrisy and un­kind­ness that there are peo­ple in our coun­try who want to fight the Amer­i­cans,” she said.

“You want to go in the peo­ple’s coun­try, but you want to bad­mouth them. Isn’t that hypocrisy from some?”

She warned pub­lic rhetoric could car­ry con­se­quences. Cit­ing the re­cent­ly an­nounced trav­el ban of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca by the US, she said they “bad­mouthed in the US and guess what hap­pened? All their visas are re­strict­ed now. They have cut their visas. Which Tri­ni wants their visa cut? So be­have your­self. Un­der­stand where our help comes from. Un­der­stand who can pro­tect and de­fend Trinidad and To­ba­go. Right now, there is on­ly one coun­try in the world that can do it…”

She added, “I don’t want a sin­gle Trinidad or To­ba­go to lose their US visa. If it hap­pens, it won’t be be­cause of me.”

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Gas­ton Browne post­ed on Face­book: “An­tiguans who have US visas will con­tin­ue to en­joy ac­cess in­to the US and there will be no re­vo­ca­tion of their visa. New visas may be sus­pend­ed for OECS coun­tries un­til bio­met­ric pass­port sys­tems are es­tab­lished to US specs.”

Short­ly af­ter, Do­mini­ca Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit said on Face­book, “Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with Unit­ed States of­fi­cials, I can con­firm that all valid Unit­ed States visas al­ready is­sued to hold­ers of Do­mini­can pass­ports, in­clud­ing tourist, busi­ness, stu­dent and oth­er cat­e­gories will con­tin­ue to be ho­n­oured and re­main valid.”

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dou­bled down on T&T’s sup­port of its US re­la­tion­ship, point­ing to mil­lions of dol­lars spent on trade, se­cu­ri­ty and de­fence.

“I stand in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. They are amongst our old­est trad­ing part­ners,” she said, adding the US re­mains T&T’s largest trad­ing part­ner.

By con­trast, she said trade with Venezuela stood at “0.0003.”

“So it’s all well and good to take the peo­ple’s visas and go up Flori­da and shop and go wher­ev­er and shop. So, just leave the peo­ple alone.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T must re­ly on the Unit­ed States for de­fence, ar­gu­ing that no oth­er coun­try has the prox­im­i­ty or mil­i­tary ca­pac­i­ty to pro­tect the na­tion.

“So, if any­body comes to at­tack Trinidad and To­ba­go, whom you think will stand up to de­fend us? I know, Phillip (Alexan­der) say, In­dia will come. In­dia not com­ing here, child. Not com­ing here. They are too far away. They may come with your hearts and with your love, but they are too far away. So, right sev­en miles away is one coun­try, and a few more miles is the USA.”

She said the coun­try has to de­fend their “de­fence as­sets and mil­i­tary might and pow­er.” 

“Like them or don’t like them, that’s not the is­sue. It’s who will give us the best to put T&T safe­ly and to put T&T first. So, Mr (An­cel) Ro­get, I hope you got the memo. I hope all of you got the memo tonight,” she said.

“And so, while you are wor­ry­ing about the radar, I want you to know every one of you is on my radar. Every one of you is on my radar, be­cause I am look­ing out for you. So you wor­ry about radar and you wor­ry about Venezuela. Do not wor­ry. “

Ex­pert dis­miss­es US visa fears

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les has dis­missed con­cerns that crit­i­cis­ing the Unit­ed States could re­sult in visa re­stric­tions, ar­gu­ing that T&T must be pre­pared to ac­cept con­se­quences in de­fence of its sov­er­eign­ty.

“If they take away your visa, so what? Well, you don’t go to the Unit­ed States. That’s all,” Gon­za­les said dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

He ques­tioned why fear of los­ing a visa should si­lence crit­i­cism, adding, “Why do you have to go to the Unit­ed States?”

Gon­za­les said coun­tries must be will­ing to ac­cept some loss­es when mak­ing de­ci­sions in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

“There’s a risk in­volved, but we have to de­cide that. But this is our sov­er­eign­ty,” he said.

He stressed that T&T is not bound to sup­port US mil­i­tary ac­tions.

He al­so re­ject­ed the view that T&T is over­ly de­pen­dent on Wash­ing­ton, de­scrib­ing the re­la­tion­ship as mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial.

He warned that se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly T&T’s prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela, must guide for­eign pol­i­cy de­ci­sions.

“We are un­der threat from Venezuela here. We are sev­en miles from their coast,” Gon­za­les said, adding that in­ter­na­tion­al in­volve­ment in Venezuela made the sit­u­a­tion un­pre­dictable.

He said T&T should have avoid­ed in­volve­ment in ac­tions per­ceived as tar­get­ing Venezuela.

“We are a small coun­try. One should not get in­volved in some­thing like that be­cause you don’t know what’s go­ing to hap­pen,” he said, de­scrib­ing de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela as “regime change” with po­ten­tial­ly se­ri­ous con­se­quences.