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TRINIDAD GUARDIAN EDITORIAL: Regional leaders of the Caribbean Community would have taken careful note of a report in yesterday’s Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, in which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed her attendance at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The leaders would have paid attention to the report because they know the T&T Prime Minister did not attend the 49th regular meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government of Caricom in Jamaica in July.
In her place, T&T’s delegation to the Caricom meeting was led by Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers, who explained her absence by saying important national issues were engaging her attention.
However, during the week of the conference, there did not appear to be any national issue that should have prevented Persad-Bissessar from attending the Jamaica meeting.
And last weekend, the Prime Minister missed another opportunity to meet her regional colleagues when she opted out of the Second Africa-Caricom Summit in Ethiopia.
The regional prime ministers attending that meeting were Mia Mottley (Barbados), Dickon Mitchell (Grenada), Terrence Drew (St Kitts and Nevis), Gaston Browne (Antigua and Barbuda), Philip Davis (The Bahamas) and Ralph Gonsalves (St Vincent and Grenadines), as well Caricom Secretary General Carla Barnett.
It is quite likely the only reason Guyana President Irfaan Ali and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness did not attend was because of issues relating to general elections in their countries.
While there are some who would perceive the Africa-Caricom Summit to be of minimal importance, as the leader of a small country in the Caribbean, which is undergoing economic stress, Persad-Bissessar has a responsibility to ensure she makes as many international friends as possible.
Meeting businesspeople at an international engagement is a great opportunity for an investment-minded leader to sell the merits of her country.
After missing the Jamaica summit, Mrs Persad-Bissessar also missed the opportunity to connect with Caricom colleagues in Ethiopia.
She could have provided them with the assurance that T&T’s wholehearted support for the overly aggressive US posturing in the Southern Caribbean region does not mean this country is any less aligned with Caricom’s established position that this region remains a zone of peace.
It needs to remain uppermost in the minds of this country’s policymakers that the Caricom region is the main market for T&T’s non-energy manufacturing sector. Also, wholly State-owned Paria Fuel Trading Company earned hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the export of fuels to the Caricom market and from bunkering, according to its audited financials for the year ended September 30, 2023.
It is in the financial interest of T&T’s manufacturing sector, therefore, that this country maintain its strong diplomatic and political relationship with its Caribbean neighbours.
The fact that Mrs Persad-Bissessar has chosen to make the UNGA meeting in New York her first overseas mission is likely to be perceived as another signal to her Caricom colleagues. That is because in responding to a query from Guardian Media, she said a face-to-face meeting on the margins of the UNGA was proposed by deputy US Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
As it is clear that Persad-Bissessar is positioning herself to be the go-to leader in the Caribbean for the US, it is hoped that meeting is with President Donald Trump and that it results in a great deal of tangible benefits for this country.
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