Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed the ad­min­is­tra­tion of for­mer US pres­i­dent Joseph Biden as “a dis­as­ter for the Amer­i­can peo­ple and the world”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the re­mark in a state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing Don­ald Trump on tak­ing of­fice Mon­day, say­ing it was a tru­ly great day for US democ­ra­cy.

Re­fer­ring to the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, she said: “They fo­cused on push­ing a woke, ex­treme left-wing agen­da that of­fend­ed ba­sic com­mon sense and moral­i­ty, over­turned the norms of civ­i­lized pub­lic life, dis­ori­ent­ed and mu­ti­lat­ed chil­dren, cen­sored and can­celled dis­sent­ing views, dis­par­aged re­li­gious and con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, fu­eled wars around the world, weaponized the ju­di­cial sys­tem against po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and in­creased nepo­tism, cor­rup­tion, crime, pover­ty, home­less­ness and wealth in­equal­i­ty.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar host­ed Biden in Trinidad and To­ba­go in May 2013 when he was US vice-pres­i­dent and warm­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed him when he was elect­ed as pres­i­dent in 2020.

Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as Prime Minister of T&T in May 2013, shows then US Vice-President Joseph Biden a steel pan manufactured in Trinidad and Tobago at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.

Back then she had said, “He ran a cam­paign on de­cen­cy, in­tegri­ty, com­pas­sion and strength. I al­so want to con­grat­u­late Ka­mala Har­ris on be­ing elect­ed Vice-Pres­i­dent, the first woman and per­son of colour to take that role. Their vic­to­ry is one for hope and uni­ty over dis­hon­esty and di­vi­sion.”

Her state­ment on Mon­day said: “Pres­i­dent Trump is the leader Amer­i­ca needs right now, and I wish him and his Gov­ern­ment God’s rich­est bless­ings and guid­ance in all their ac­tions for the greater good of Amer­i­ca and the rest of the world.”

She salut­ed Trump’s “re­silience, com­mit­ment, and fight­ing spir­it.”

“He has sur­vived as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempts, po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, and years of per­son­al at­tacks, but he tri­umphed in the end,” she said.

She said she an­tic­i­pates “sig­nif­i­cant and dra­mat­ic changes in in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, diplo­ma­cy, for­eign af­fairs, and bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions” un­der Trump’s pres­i­den­cy.

“I look for­ward to the re­turn of mer­i­toc­ra­cy, ex­cel­lence and in­tel­li­gence as a stan­dard cri­te­ri­on for ac­cess­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ties,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.