The PM at the UN

THE Prime Minister made it clear that Trinidad and Tobago had its own reading of the security challenges that the Caribbean faces, beginning with a firm dismissal of any concept of the region as a "zone of peace."

Mia Mottley and Ralph Gonsalves called for the Caribbean to aspire to that ideal, but Kamla Persad-Bissessar dismissed such thinking as an "elusive promise."

Mrs Persad-Bissessar endorsed US President Donald Trump’s position on conflating narco- and human trafficking, organised crime, and illegal immigration as necessarily interrelated.

Unlike Mr Trump, whose aggressively careless deportations and ring fencing of American jobs through dramatically increased fees for working visas have characterised his second term in office, Mrs Persad-Bissessar called for greater emphasis on legal immigration while lamenting Trinidad and Tobago's inability to mount a militarised response to migrants.

Co-opting, but dramatically redefining the UN General Assembly's theme – Better Together, the PM saluted the illegal murder on suspected drug boats as a good thing for Trinidad and Tobago, even as the heavy-handed incidents provided amusement for US Vice President JD Vance, who archly dismissed the killings with the quip, "I wouldn't go fishing right now in that area of the world."

Even more worrying are the words of encouragement the PM offered to the US to increase military force in Haiti, where violence and instability have been fuelled not by drug trafficking but by widespread poverty and famine, economic collapse, and most recently, the removal of fuel subsidies, increasing costs nationwide.

The US has deployed a small force to Haiti, but historians will recall that a 1915 US military intervention in Haiti lasted 19 years, resulting in brutal massacres while changing nothing.

A larger military deployment in 2025 to "suppress gangs" won't change the systemic problems in Haiti that leave young men with few alternatives to taking what they need at gunpoint.

Consider also the PM's surprising position on climate change, which appears to endorse the right of nations to develop regardless of the impact on the planet. The most immediate effects of global warming, inclusive of ocean current changes and rising sea levels, will affect small island states disproportionately.

On a conciliatory and positive note, Mrs Persad-Bissessar reiterated Trinidad and Tobago's support for the 30-year old Beijing Declaration on the rights of women and girls and pledged support for the overall mission of the UN.

The PM's enthusiasm for the gunboat diplomacy of the US in the Caribbean and its unsubstantiated assurances that every pirogue it destroys is infested with narco-traffickers doesn't ignore the position of Caricom; it bluntly refutes it.

Her commitment to "fight fire with fire" is dangerous in a world that looks increasingly like kindling. Her caveat – “within the law” – is hardly comforting.

There was no equivocation from her on display at the rostrum at the UN, and time will tell whether this strategy of forceful leadership benefits Trinidad and Tobago.