Last Updated on Sunday, 24 August 2025, 9:14 by Writer
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Saturday pledged to allow American forces to use her country to defend Guyana against any attack by Venezuela.
“I want to make it very clear that if the Maduro regime launches any attack against the Guyanese people or invades Guyanese territory and a request is made by the American Government for access to Trinidadian territory to defend the people of Guyana, my government will unflinchingly provide them that access,” she said in a statement welcoming American air and naval forces to international waters in the southern Caribbean.
Venezuela claims the 160,000 square kilometer Essequibo Region although an 1899 Arbitral Tribunal fixed the land boundary between the neighbouring South American nations.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year warned Venezuela that action would be taken if Venezuela invades Guyana or attacks ExxonMobil’s assets in Guyanese waters.
The PM said her country enjoys good relations, something she hoped would continue. She said no requests have ever been made by the American government for their military assets to access Trinidadian territory for any military action against the Venezuelan regime.
The twin-island republic’s endorsement of the U.S.’ military presence in the region to go after narco-terrorism organisations came one day after the Guyana government backed efforts by its international partners to ‘dismantle’ criminal networks such as Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns).
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in July, 2025 sanctioned the cartel as a global terrorist organisation.
The U.S. accuses Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro of heading Cartel de los Soles which has captured the State of Venezuela. A US$50 million reward is being offered by the US fir information leading to his arrest.
The T&T PM said the U.S. government’s deployment of American military assets into the Caribbean region to destroy the terrorist drug cartels has the full support of her governmemt.
She said there was no need to consult with sister Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member nations and they are free to take their own positions. “The Trinidad and Tobago government has not engaged and has no intention of engaging CARICOM on this matter; each member state can speak for themselves on this issue. Trinidad and Tobago has been helplessly drowning in blood and violence for the last twenty years,” she added.
Venezuela enjoys close economic and political relations with the left-leaning governments of Antigua and Barhuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Due to drug, human and firearms trafficking, Caribbean countries, she said in particular T&T has experienced “massive spikes” in transnational crime, gang activity, murders, violence and financial crimes.
Most Caribbean countries, in particular Trinidad and Tobago, have been dealing with out-of-control crime for the last twenty years, she said, adding that “small island states like ours simply do not have the financial and military resources to take on the drug cartels.”
Cartels have been enabled to embed themselves into the high echelons of Caribbean societies, thereby exhibiting significant influence in political, legislative, media, banking, security and economic decisions, often rendering governments toothless to enact actual change to stop criminal activity, said the T&T leader.
She said record murder rates, gang activity, drug addictions, violent crime and increasing poverty throughout the Caribbean and especially in Trinidad and Tobago certainly do not paint a peaceful existence.
“It is shocking to hear some persons using referrals to the Caribbean region as a zone of peace to push negative commentary on the U.S. military deployment against these terrorist cartels.
Ms Bissessar leader said that the only persons who should be worried about the activity of the U.S. military are those engaged in or enabling criminal activity. Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear.
Despite the misinformation being peddled, Ms Persad-Bissessar said the U.S. military is operating legally in international waters within the region and have not breached any nations sovereignty.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, she said, spoke the truth when he mentioned the high murder and crime rates. She said no amount of “Trump derangement syndrome tantrums and anti-American propaganda” would prevent her government from welcoming assistance to combat the terrorist drug cartels. “Other CARICOM countries are free to make their decisions based on the best interests of their citizens,” she added.
Discover more from Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
