The Ger­ald R Ford Car­ri­er Strike Group is now in the Caribbean Sea. Its ar­rival has in­ten­si­fied mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the US South­com, with the an­nounce­ment of “Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear” by US Sec­re­tary of War, Pe­ter Hegseth. His ar­tic­u­la­tion of a cam­paign to re­move “nar­co-ter­ror­ists from our hemi­sphere” and to se­cure the US from “the drugs that are killing [their] peo­ple” echoes the same lan­guage used to jus­ti­fy the 20 mil­i­tary strikes on “nar­co-ter­ror­ist” ves­sels, which have re­sult­ed in a kill count of 80.

Colom­bian Pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro, hav­ing iden­ti­fied at least one of those killed as Colom­bian, has an­nounced a halt to his coun­try’s in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing with US se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies. The US gov­ern­ment had al­ready re­voked his visa over re­marks at UN­GA 80 in Sep­tem­ber, where he ap­pealed to Amer­i­can sol­diers to de­fy Pres­i­dent Trump.

Now brand­ed an “il­le­gal drug leader” by Pres­i­dent Trump, Pres­i­dent Petro must see in Pres­i­dent Maduro’s predica­ment a glimpse of his own pos­si­ble fu­ture. Colom­bia, af­ter all, is the world’s top co­caine pro­duc­er.

AG John Je­re­mie told the UK’s Fi­nan­cial Times that the US 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit would “in­ten­si­fy ex­er­cis­es in the com­ing days” in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as we are “re­quired to co-op­er­ate in terms of al­low­ing ac­cess to US forces” due to the re­new­al of a Sta­tus of Forces Agree­ment by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment in De­cem­ber 2024.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers con­firmed that the MEU will con­duct joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force from No­vem­ber 16 to 21. The de­nial of co­op­er­a­tion for “regime change” and the fo­cus on fight­ing the drug trade have been con­sis­tent. Maduro isn’t buy­ing it. Feel­ing the heat, he has mo­bilised all 200,000 of Venezuela’s troops. A mas­sive ar­ma­da con­duct­ing “mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es” so close to home would un­set­tle any neigh­bour.

Al­though it was al­leged that two Trinida­di­ans were among those killed in the boat strikes, this has nev­er been con­firmed. More­over, the of­fi­cial lo­cal fish­er­folk as­so­ci­a­tions have not re­port­ed los­ing any of their mem­bers to US mil­i­tary strikes on “nar­co-ter­ror­ists.” What they have re­port­ed is the free­dom to work with­in lo­cal wa­ters with­out the threat of pi­rate at­tacks.

Which Trin­bag­on­ian would risk ven­tur­ing in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters dur­ing this un­cer­tain pe­ri­od? Per­haps if the US mil­i­tary had been present in 2019, the sev­en fish­er­men from Car­li Bay and Or­ange Val­ley who lost their lives at sea might still be with their fam­i­lies to­day. The TTPS has al­so re­port­ed a re­duc­tion in the sup­ply of il­le­gal nar­cotics and mar­i­jua­na, ac­com­pa­nied by in­creased prices. The drug trade is not im­mune to the or­di­nary eco­nom­ic laws of sup­ply and de­mand.

As we con­tin­ue to op­er­ate un­der a state of emer­gency, we ex­pect our gov­ern­ment to mon­i­tor so­cial me­dia and ex­tin­guish any ru­mours aimed at in­cit­ing hys­te­ria. Many peo­ple con­tin­ue to make de­ci­sions based on un­ver­i­fied “leaks.” This is what sparked the re­cent pan­ic when ser­vice­men in­formed their loved ones of their mo­bil­i­sa­tion or­ders. Cit­i­zens want to know they will be safe. Could our coun­try be used as a stag­ing point for a US at­tack? Could—God for­bid—mil­i­tary con­flict reach our wa­ters or make land­fall? Or is this all just brinkman­ship?

In seek­ing to re­duce noise pol­lu­tion and re­store peace to sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar has banned fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my. She has sig­nalled that “noise pol­lu­tion laws will be in­tro­duced to reg­u­late des­ig­nat­ed qui­et hours, as well as new re­stric­tions on fetes, mu­sic trucks, res­i­den­tial par­ties, and bars.” Fire­works leg­is­la­tion will al­so be in­clud­ed.

Hav­ing served as Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources, I was re­spon­si­ble for the EMA, which han­dles all mat­ters re­lat­ed to pol­lu­tion. Fete pro­mot­ers would re­quire a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance and a Noise Vari­a­tion Per­mit from the EMA. Res­i­dents could re­port dis­tur­bances to the TTPS, but the EMA al­so has its own po­lice equipped with sound-lev­el me­ters. I doubt that the unit is prop­er­ly staffed to re­spond prompt­ly to the vol­ume of com­plaints. As with all laws, en­force­abil­i­ty is key. The re­cent­ly in­stalled EMA board will cer­tain­ly have an ear­ful dur­ing the Christ­mas, New Year’s and Car­ni­val sea­sons ahead.

It has been three weeks since the pas­sage of the na­tion­al bud­get, so there was great ex­pec­ta­tion that the gov­ern­ment would have be­gun crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­tur­al work across the coun­try by now. Cit­i­zens with worn pa­tience are com­plain­ing that “noth­ing is hap­pen­ing!” In my cir­cles, there has been no pub­lic road paving or patch­ing, min­i­mal main­te­nance of pub­lic spaces and a dearth of mi­nor con­struc­tion projects.

In 2010, with­in three weeks of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship’s gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry, I was able to get work start­ed and ma­jor roads paved—even as a novice gov­ern­ment MP.

The gov­ern­ment’s “Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print” has on­ly el­e­vat­ed ex­pec­ta­tions fur­ther. When will the first mega-project be­gin? Will the fund­ing come from the Mid­dle East? Are we de­pend­ing on Venezue­lan regime change? Will pre­vi­ous­ly ma­ligned groups be in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in pub­lic–pri­vate part­ner­ships? As we chase these dreams, will low-hang­ing fruit rot on the vine? Will the road to Oz be paved with pot­holes?