KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

For­mer for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go could be named in con­gres­sion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion fol­low­ing the De­moc­rats’ sweep­ing vic­to­ry in the US midterm elec­tions.

Dr Browne said the coun­try could face con­se­quences for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s close align­ment with Trump, par­tic­u­lar­ly her Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion press con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port of Spain yes­ter­day, Dr Browne ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of aban­don­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tra­di­tion­al ap­proach to for­eign pol­i­cy in favour of what he de­scribed as a rad­i­cal, MA­GA-style phi­los­o­phy that con­flicts with the coun­try’s na­tion­al in­ter­ests.

His com­ments came a day af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter dis­missed con­cerns that the De­moc­rats’ cap­ture of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate could un­der­mine Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with Wash­ing­ton.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the elec­tion re­sults as pre­dictable and said co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries would con­tin­ue re­gard­less of which par­ty con­trols Con­gress.

Dr Browne, how­ev­er, ar­gued that the po­lit­i­cal shift in Wash­ing­ton could bring de­tails of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s co­op­er­a­tion with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der greater scruti­ny.

“I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so… Over the next year, two years in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, it’s go­ing to be in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Cer­tain of­fi­cials will face im­peach­ment. There’s al­ready talk about that.”

He added: “It is un­for­tu­nate that there are pre­dic­tions that in those in­ves­ti­ga­tions, those im­peach­ment hear­ings, you can an­tic­i­pate the phrase Trinidad and To­ba­go aris­ing in cir­cum­stances where it re­al­ly should not.”

Dr Browne point­ed to the Gov­ern­ment’s en­dorse­ment of US mil­i­tary strikes against sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean and ques­tioned whether the le­gal ba­sis for those op­er­a­tions would with­stand con­gres­sion­al scruti­ny.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the mil­i­tary radar in­stalled at Crown Point, To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic about its pur­pose. He sug­gest­ed con­gres­sion­al hear­ings could un­cov­er de­tails about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s role in US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ties that have not been pub­licly dis­closed.

“It is like­ly the is­sue of trans­paren­cy will come to the fore, and the role of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, very much con­cealed by the Prime Min­is­ter, will come to fur­ther light,” he said.

Dr Browne al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tions on Venezuela, Cu­ba, Iran and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, ar­gu­ing that they rep­re­sent­ed an un­nec­es­sary de­par­ture from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long­stand­ing diplo­mat­ic prin­ci­ples.

He said the PNM had re­peat­ed­ly warned against adopt­ing the po­lit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy of a for­eign ad­min­is­tra­tion in­stead of main­tain­ing re­la­tion­ships across the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“What the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has of­fered all along is the stan­dard by which Trinidad and To­ba­go has been known: the voice of mod­er­a­tion, the voice of pru­dence, the voice of bal­ance,” he said.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­proach, ques­tion­ing whether she un­der­stood the dis­tinc­tion be­tween par­ty pol­i­tics and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of gov­ern­ment.

Draw­ing on her ex­pe­ri­ence as a for­mer am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Beck­les said suc­ces­sive PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions had recog­nised the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing re­la­tion­ships with both De­moc­rats and Re­pub­li­cans.

She said Trinidad and To­ba­go should re­spect whichev­er ad­min­is­tra­tion holds of­fice in Wash­ing­ton while main­tain­ing ties with po­lit­i­cal lead­ers on both sides.

“What I’m clear about is that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment—and I’m go­ing way back to Er­ic Williams—we have al­ways been very clear about bi­par­ti­san­ship… You don’t have to take a po­si­tion where you bla­tant­ly give the im­pres­sion that you ig­nore one side over the oth­er. When some­one is in gov­ern­ment, they are ab­solute­ly due their re­spect. They’re due their re­spect. And un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, you know how you treat with gov­ern­ments. But it doesn’t mean to say that you can’t have what you call a de­cent re­la­tion­ship with who­ev­er is in op­po­si­tion,” she said.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert warned that the De­moc­rats’ con­gres­sion­al vic­to­ry could cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty in the in­vest­ment cli­mate and po­ten­tial­ly af­fect projects that have not yet been fi­nalised.

He said the in­com­ing De­mo­c­ra­t­ic ma­jori­ties could use their con­gres­sion­al pow­ers to in­ves­ti­gate the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and hold hear­ings, cre­at­ing un­cer­tain­ty for prospec­tive in­vestors.

“What that would do is af­fect the in­vest­ment cli­mate. I can’t see how it could af­fect things that are al­ready set­tled, but per­sons who have not yet fi­nalised their plans and so on may re­con­sid­er in­vest­ments, be­cause they don’t know what would come from there. That’s about all I could say: it in­tro­duces un­cer­tain­ty in­to the in­vest­ment cli­mate,” he said.

Im­bert did not sug­gest that ex­ist­ing en­er­gy arrange­ments be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States would be jeop­ar­dised. He said agree­ments in­volv­ing US au­thor­i­ties could con­tin­ue de­spite the change in Con­gress.

“It de­pends on who our Gov­ern­ment is deal­ing with. They’re deal­ing with the au­thor­i­ties in the Unit­ed States. The au­thor­i­ties re­main, so they can con­tin­ue with what­ev­er they’re do­ing. That’s my view,” he said.