Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has tak­en to the wa­ter in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

Sobers ap­peared aboard a boat in a video post­ed to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs’ Face­book page on Tues­day.
The video re­capped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­gage­ments on the open­ing day of the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) 2026.

The video, which showed Sobers tak­ing part in high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ments, comes against the back­drop of an ear­li­er con­tro­ver­sy over claims that he de­clined to at­tend a Cari­com re­treat in Nevis due to con­cerns with sea­sick­ness.

Rep­re­sent­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the cur­rent Com­mon­wealth sum­mit, Sobers par­tic­i­pat­ed in bi­lat­er­al meet­ings with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Unit­ed King­dom and Ghana. The meet­ings aimed to strength­en diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and ex­plore ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est and co­op­er­a­tion.
He al­so at­tend­ed the of­fi­cial open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, join­ing lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the Com­mon­wealth.

In its ac­com­pa­ny­ing Face­book cap­tion, the min­istry said the en­gage­ments reaf­firmed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s com­mit­ment to mean­ing­ful di­a­logue, strong in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships, and ad­vanc­ing na­tion­al and re­gion­al in­ter­ests.

Sobers’ ap­pear­ance aboard a boat is like­ly to bring at­ten­tion back to the con­tro­ver­sy that erupt­ed in April, when for­mer St Vin­cent and the Grenadines prime min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves claimed the min­is­ter had cho­sen not to at­tend a Cari­com re­treat be­cause he claimed he suf­fers from sea­sick­ness.

Sobers, how­ev­er, claimed he had been dis­in­vit­ed from the re­treat and re­ject­ed that ac­count, in­sist­ing his’ re­mark about sea­sick­ness was made in jest.

Gon­salves’ ac­count al­so con­tra­dict­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go was ex­clud­ed from the vote to reap­point Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett be­cause the re­gion­al body did not recog­nise Sobers as head of the na­tion­al del­e­ga­tion af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­par­ture.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment main­tained that this pre­vent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion.
CHOGM end­ed yes­ter­day.