The T&T Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed why it is stand­ing apart from its Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) neigh­bours by de­clin­ing to sup­port a re­gion­al po­si­tion on key se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty is­sues, in­clud­ing the grow­ing US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led gov­ern­ment “wish­es to once more, cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly ex­press its strong sup­port for the on­go­ing mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion of the Unit­ed States in the re­gion.” The state­ment added that these op­er­a­tions, aimed at com­bat­ting nar­cotics and hu­man traf­fick­ing and oth­er forms of transna­tion­al crime, help es­tab­lish the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace” where cit­i­zens can live and work safe­ly.

On Sat­ur­day, the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at in Guyana said re­gion­al lead­ers met to dis­cuss se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, in­clud­ing US mil­i­tary build-up, but T&T did not en­dorse the col­lec­tive po­si­tion. The meet­ing fol­lows a se­ries of US strikes tar­get­ing sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels off Venezuela, the lat­est re­port­ed­ly claim­ing the lives of two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als.

“Save in re­spect of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who re­served its po­si­tion, Heads agreed to reaf­firm the prin­ci­ple of main­tain­ing the Caribbean Re­gion as a Zone of Peace and the im­por­tance of di­a­logue and en­gage­ment in re­solv­ing dis­putes,” the Cari­com state­ment read. Lead­ers al­so reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to tack­ling nar­co­traf­fick­ing and the il­le­gal trade in small arms through in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and in line with in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Port-of-Spain clar­i­fied that these op­er­a­tions are “not meant to tar­get law-abid­ing per­sons, specif­i­cal­ly fish­er­folk and oth­er sea­far­ers seek­ing to earn an hon­est liv­ing.” It warned that any­one en­gag­ing in or sup­port­ing il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in the re­gion “does so at their own per­il.”

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pub­licly praised the US cam­paign, stat­ing last month: “The slaugh­ter of our peo­ple is fu­elled by evil car­tel traf­fick­ers… I have no sym­pa­thy for traf­fick­ers; the US mil­i­tary should kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­demned what she called the Prime Min­is­ter’s “con­tin­ued ab­sence and si­lence” on crit­i­cal na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mat­ters. In a state­ment, Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cho­sen “re­treat over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty” by not ad­dress­ing the na­tion or par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get De­bate.

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cized the Prime Min­is­ter for “al­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to stand alone in Cari­com” and redi­rect­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ques­tions to the US. She said the Cari­com state­ment ex­plic­it­ly not­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­fusal to adopt the re­gion­al po­si­tion, rais­ing “se­ri­ous ques­tions about the gov­ern­ment’s for­eign pol­i­cy di­rec­tion and un­der­stand­ing of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.”

The Op­po­si­tion is call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dress the na­tion on the econ­o­my, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and the coun­try’s re­gion­al stance.

Beck­les added: “The con­tin­ued ab­sence of the Prime Min­is­ter from na­tion­al dis­course is a dere­lic­tion of du­ty. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serve hon­esty, trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and lead­er­ship with vi­sion and courage.”