By Sue-Ann Wayow

GOVERNMENT has issued what may be the most reckless foreign policy statement citizens have experienced in years, says former Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley.

In a lengthy Facebook post on Monday, Dr. Rowley added that it was done with the kind of confidence that only comes when they think nobody was paying attention.

He advised citizens to closely read the statement which was issued on Saturday by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Dr. Rowley said the government was outrightly stating it has chosen to side with the US and not its closest geographical neighbour whose immigrants have been flooding Trinidad and Tobago for decades.

He pointed to the statement “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.”

Dr. Rowley said, “The part that should make every Caribbean head turn is the outright dismissal of CARICOM. Trinidad declared that “each member state can speak for themselves.” Translation: regional unity is good until it clashes with Uncle Sam. That one line detonates years of collective diplomacy. Small islands, which were strongest when moving together, are now being told, “good luck, allyuh fend for yourself.”

He said the statements on crime were a pure deflection, and that while the crime rate remained high, no number of US warships parked in international waters will fix corrupt police, court backlogs, or communities abandoned by the state.

“Linking our domestic collapse to drug cartels abroad is lazy politics. Worse, it’s a ready-made excuse to invite foreign military power into the region without showing how it makes us safer,” Dr. Rowley said.

He said based on the statement in its entirety, “Venezuela will read it as betrayal, Guyana will see it as a blank cheque and Washington will quietly note they now have a willing Caribbean client.”

Persad-Bissessar said, “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.”

Former Prime Minister Rowley also noted that no consultation or parliamentary debate was mentioned on the matter.

“The government just mortgaged our sovereignty without a serious national conversation.”

Dr. Rowley said, “The implications are stark. CARICOM unity? Compromised. Venezuela relations? Poisoned. American access? Granted without guarantees. Trinidad has just swapped regional solidarity for a pat on the head from Washington.”

Dr. Rowley, a former chair of CARICOM said if government planned to abandon CARICOM in this matter, the country will face the future alone.

He said no political party could deal with the US intervention on its own.

Dr. Rowley criticised Persad-Bissessar saying there was no evidence of patriotism from her.

“Sovereignty is treated as disposable, something to trade when it suits her, something transactional. That cynicism leaves the country hollow,” he said.

“That is the sovereignty irony: patriotic language for show, sovereignty bartered away in practice. Kamla treats the nation like a chip in someone else’s casino. And when leaders behave like brokers instead of patriots, it’s always the people who lose left waving the symbols of a country while the substance slips quietly out the back door.”

A subsequent post dealt with the previous time invasion was threatened and Maduro did not comply and CARICOM showed united leadership.