Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trinidad and To­ba­go will open its first em­bassy in the Mid­dle East, in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE), For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers an­nounced yes­ter­day.

The move comes as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to deep­en its diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic en­gage­ment in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, while a new strate­gic part­ner­ship with Venezuela is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­creased trade in en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy prod­ucts, strength­en lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and low­er the coun­try’s food im­port bill.

Sobers in­di­cat­ed this in a state­ment yes­ter­day to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) last month in New York.

On the UN­GA’s side­lines, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar held sev­er­al bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with var­i­ous world lead­ers.

He said Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ued to at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al donor fi­nanc­ing as a di­rect re­sult of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s diplo­mat­ic out­reach, by ob­tain­ing a com­mit­ment for a ma­jor grant from the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates Gov­ern­ment for crit­i­cal equip­ment for the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

“De­tails on this will be an­nounced short­ly, and Trinidad and To­ba­go will, for the first time, open an Em­bassy in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, be­ing the first em­bassy in the Mid­dle East.”

Sobers said a ma­jor suc­cess of UN­GA 2026 was the mu­tu­al­ly agreed set­ting of a new strate­gic part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela.

“This will see both coun­tries ac­cel­er­ate an am­bi­tious work agen­da aimed at strength­en­ing ex­change and mu­tu­al ben­e­fit in the ar­eas of trade, en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, agri­cul­ture, and cul­ture,” Sobers said.

He added, “The ex­pand­ed and more holis­tic ap­proach in en­gag­ing with the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela will, for the first time, un­lock the po­ten­tial for a bur­geon­ing of trade in en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy prod­ucts with Trinidad and To­ba­go for the mu­tu­al pros­per­i­ty of both coun­tries, which will strength­en man­u­fac­tur­ers and low­er the food im­port bill lo­cal­ly.”

Sobers said the Prime Min­is­ter un­der­took an in­ten­sive pro­gramme of bi­lat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al en­gage­ments with Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment, se­nior of­fi­cials and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

En­gage­ments in­clud­ed the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as (SOA) event, chaired by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

He said dur­ing the event, Trinidad and To­ba­go was recog­nised by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion as the first SOA na­tion to join the US in des­ig­nat­ing 25 crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions as for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Sobers said this will at­tract con­tin­ued tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to com­bat crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty do­mes­ti­cal­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so held bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with Ghana’s Pres­i­dent John Dra­mani Ma­hama, Kyr­gyz Re­pub­lic Pres­i­dent Sadyr Japarov, Aus­tri­an Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Van der Bellen and In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar.

Meet­ings were al­so held with UK Prime Min­is­ter Andy Burn­ham and Japan’s Prime Min­is­ter Sanae Takaichi.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s del­e­ga­tion con­duct­ed an ad­di­tion­al 20 bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with the For­eign Min­is­ters and se­nior of­fi­cials of Afghanistan, Aru­ba, Bangladesh, Benin, De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Gabon, Kenya, Mex­i­co, Nether­lands, North Mace­do­nia, Pana­ma, Paraguay, Philip­pines, Ro­ma­nia, Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, San Mari­no, Su­dan, Unit­ed King­dom and Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

Bi­lat­er­al in­ter­ac­tions yield­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Gabon, North Mace­do­nia and San Mari­no; and the sig­na­ture of bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with eight coun­tries.