The Unit­ed States has do­nat­ed four ex­plo­sive trace de­tec­tion (ETD) ma­chines to the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AATT) on be­half of the U.S. Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Ad­min­is­tra­tion (TSA) at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The ETD de­vices will stream­line se­cu­ri­ty screen­ing for pas­sen­gers by im­prov­ing and speed­ing up de­tec­tion of sus­pect­ed ex­plo­sives on car­ry-on bag­gage. The de­vices are each about as large as a stan­dard print­er. Each is val­ued at US$50,000 for a to­tal do­na­tion of US$200,000.

Since 2021, TSA has do­nat­ed avi­a­tion se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment to in­crease the tech­ni­cal screen­ing ca­pac­i­ty of se­cu­ri­ty part­ners with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go. TSA worked with the U.S. De­part­ment of State Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Bu­reau, and the U.S. De­part­ment of Jus­tice In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal In­ves­tiga­tive Train­ing As­sis­tance Pro­gram (IC­I­TAP) to iden­ti­fy, pro­cure, and de­liv­er two Ad­vanced Im­age Tech­nol­o­gy (AIT) scan­ners (“body scan­ners”) in 2021. Each AIT is val­ued at US$200,000. TSA al­so pro­vides train­ing for lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers to uti­lize the tech­nol­o­gy. The scan­ners have im­proved trans­porta­tion se­cu­ri­ty for the trav­el­ing pub­lic.

Am­bas­sador Bond said, “This se­cu­ri­ty en­hance­ment will min­i­mize threats to trans­porta­tion se­cu­ri­ty and up­grade the over­all screen­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for pas­sen­gers. I am de­light­ed we can roll this out just at the start of the in­creased com­mer­cial trav­el pe­ri­od dur­ing Car­ni­val, and that the ben­e­fits to trav­el­ers to and from Trinidad and To­ba­go will last for years to come.”

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan was on hand to per­son­al­ly thank the Unit­ed States Em­bassy for the do­na­tion. “The Air­port Au­thor­i­ty/Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and the A. N. R. Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, and the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca have al­ways worked very close­ly. And we in­tend to con­tin­ue that. We have al­ways wel­comed your sup­port,” he said. “Thank you, Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, thank you Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, thank you TSA, and thank you to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca for all your sup­port.”