Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s meet­ings in Wash­ing­ton on Thurs­day in­clud­ed ses­sions with Speak­er of the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Con­gress­woman Nan­cy Pelosi and Spe­cial En­voy for Cli­mate Change John Ker­ry at the US De­part­ment of State.

And the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry stat­ed that Row­ley’s Wash­ing­ton sched­ule is ex­pect­ed to in­clude par­tic­i­pa­tion in a meet­ing with US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said Row­ley spent a sec­ond day yes­ter­day at high lev­el meet­ings with se­nior US law­mak­ers at Capi­tol Hill.

Talks fo­cused on is­sues of mu­tu­al ben­e­fit to T&T and the US, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ar­eas of trade, en­er­gy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign pol­i­cy.

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young and Am­bas­sador to the US and Mex­i­co, An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, a re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al, ac­com­pa­nied the Prime Min­is­ter to the meet­ings.

In his first meet­ing of the day, with Spe­cial En­voy for Cli­mate Change John Ker­ry, con­ver­sa­tions fo­cused on the re­duc­tion of car­bon and ethane emis­sions and T&T’s re­new­able en­er­gy ef­forts.

At the US De­part­ment of En­er­gy, the Prime Min­is­ter met with As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs of the US De­part­ment of En­er­gy An­drew Light.

In an­oth­er meet­ing, Row­ley held dis­cus­sions with chair­man of House Com­mit­tee on For­eign Af­fairs, Con­gress­man Gre­go­ry Meeks (D-NY 5th Dis­trict); Rank­ing Re­pub­li­can Mem­ber Mark Green of the Sub-com­mit­tee on West­ern Hemi­sphere, Civil­ian Se­cu­ri­ty, Mi­gra­tion and In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy and Con­gress­man Juan Var­gas.

Row­ley al­so met Ma­jor­i­ty Whip and third-rank­ing De­mo­c­rat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Con­gress­man James Clyburn (D-SC 6th Dis­trict).

Mean­while, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry hint­ed about a meet­ing with US VP Har­ris in a state­ment where the min­istry slammed PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s claim that there was a “lack of en­thu­si­asm” from Row­ley to co-op­er­ate with the US.

The min­istry stat­ed: “In fact, the Prime Min­is­ter’s en­coun­ters in Wash­ing­ton DC in­clude sched­uled meet­ings with Con­gress­man Ben­nie G. Thomp­son, Chair­man of the House Com­mit­tee on Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty; Con­gress­woman Max­ine Wa­ters chair of the House Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee; Tim­o­thy M. Kaine, Chair­man of the Sen­ate Sub­com­mit­tee on West­ern Hemi­sphere, Transna­tion­al Crime, Civil­ian Se­cu­ri­ty, Democ­ra­cy, Hu­man Rights and Glob­al Women’s Is­sues; and Bri­an Nel­son, Un­der Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is al­so ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a meet­ing with the Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. How does such con­sis­tent high-lev­el en­gage­ment, pur­sued by the Prime Min­is­ter trans­late in­to a ‘lack of en­thu­si­asm from the Prime Min­is­ter to co­op­er­ate with the Unit­ed States?”