Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day re­ceived a call from Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State, Mar­co Ru­bio, con­grat­u­lat­ing her on her vic­to­ry in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the US State De­part­ment con­firmed.

US State De­part­ment spokesper­son Tam­my Bruce said in a state­ment pub­lished on its web­site that Ru­bio and Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so dis­cussed strength­en­ing the part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States, to ad­vance re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and mu­tu­al pri­or­i­ties.

“The Sec­re­tary reaf­firmed the Unit­ed States strong and en­dur­ing part­ner­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go, ground­ed in deep his­toric ties and shared goals for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty. We com­mend the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and in­sti­tu­tions, demon­strat­ed through their free and fair na­tion­al elec­tions,” Bruce said in the state­ment.

It added that Ru­bio and Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so dis­cussed op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­hance co-op­er­a­tion on mu­tu­al pri­or­i­ties, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and de­fence co-op­er­a­tion.

The State De­part­ment is­sued a state­ment on Wednes­day con­grat­u­lat­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her vic­to­ry and com­mend­ed the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and in­sti­tu­tions, which it said was demon­strat­ed through the peace­ful and or­der­ly con­duct of their free and fair na­tion­al elec­tions.

“The Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go share a strong and en­dur­ing part­ner­ship root­ed in deep his­toric ties, re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion, and shared goals for pros­per­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. We look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her ad­min­is­tra­tion to strength­en our col­lab­o­ra­tion on en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, and coun­ter­ing transna­tion­al crime,” that state­ment said.

It is not un­com­mon for new­ly elect­ed prime min­is­ters of coun­tries with close ties to the Unit­ed States to re­ceive cour­tesy calls from the Sec­re­tary of State.

Ru­bio, who took of­fice on Jan­u­ary 21 un­der the new Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, had two pre­vi­ous in­ter­ac­tions with for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

The first came at a meet­ing in Ja­maica on March 25, where he held bi­lat­er­al talks with Young and oth­er Cari­com lead­ers.

That meet­ing dis­cussed mat­ters re­lat­ed to en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion, se­cu­ri­ty, im­mi­gra­tion, Haiti and oth­er mat­ters of US in­ter­est.

Young al­so spoke with Ru­bio on the phone on April 18 fol­low­ing which the State De­part­ment said Ru­bio reaf­firmed “the strong US-Trinidad and To­ba­go bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship, em­pha­sis­ing shared pri­or­i­ties in re­gion­al en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic co-op­er­a­tion.” 

It said that in those talks, Young em­pha­sised his gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to re­spon­si­ble en­er­gy sec­tor de­vel­op­ment and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion. 

The US sub­se­quent­ly can­celled two li­cences that had been grant­ed by the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) that were meant to al­low for cross-bor­der gas de­vel­op­ments be­tween this coun­try and Venezuela.

Among them was a li­cence for the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on gas field that was key to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment.

Se­nior Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­ber, David Lee who was elect­ed mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­roni Cen­tral on April 28, has said that a UNC gov­ern­ment will open dis­cus­sions with the US with a view of pur­su­ing these projects once aligned with the in­ter­ests of both T&T and the US.