Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar have been singled out among regional leaders to meet with President Trump in Florida on March 7, according to an announcement.
The invitation came while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in St. Kitts for this week’s Caribbean Community summit. Rubio met with leaders in a special session at the conference on Wednesday, and both leaders confirmed plans to attend the meeting with reporters on the island.
The U.S. has, in recent months, ramped up its relations with the two resource-rich member nations, both of which had openly thrown their support behind lethal American military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Southern Caribbean, and for Washington’s stated effort to curb weapons, drugs, and human trafficking, among other aspects of organized crime in the region and hemisphere.
The strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea have killed dozens of people, including two Trinidadian nationals and three from St. Lucia, as confirmed by government officials there in the past week. In throwing her federation with Tobago’s full support behind the U.S. presence and military action in the region, Persad Bissessar has credited this for a 42 % reduction in murders and a consequential reduction in violent and felony crimes as she made that point during her address at the summit’s opening ceremony late Tuesday.
Briefing reporters about the summit, President Ali said that it appears to pertain to hemispheric security for the most part. It’s a meeting dealing with security matters, some of the challenges in the region, and how we can coordinate better in relation to those challenges. I’m not aware of who’s present or who will not be present. I can speak about Guyana. And Guyana has been invited to this meeting, and we will be attending,” he said.
The T&T prime minister said she hopes the meeting will benefit locals. “All for the benefit of the people of T&T. Whatever we do is for the benefit — security, trade, prosperity, and of course safety,” she said.
Both leaders held separate bilateral meetings with Rubio.
Trump and Rubio have been leading an American effort to tighten security in the region and to undermine what is regarded as China’s growing influence in the hemisphere through loans, grants, and the construction of massive development projects by Chinese firms, mostly with Chinese labor.
In recent days, senior military officials from 33 hemispheric nations, Canada, and some from Europe attended a Western Hemisphere chief of defense conference in Washington, with 13 CARICOM states invited, officials said.
