If Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was jovial at Thurs­day’s launch of the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print plan, the name of the event may not nec­es­sar­i­ly have been the re­sult of her re­cent To­ba­go vis­it.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, an­nounc­ing the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion mega-project, was fresh from the oth­er side of the twin-is­land na­tion when To­ba­go Love was of­fi­cialised in pub­lic out­reach, which is her forte.

The am­bi­tious Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print seeks to move the Gov­ern­ment on and re­vi­talise its im­age, cred­i­bil­i­ty, and foot­ing with the pub­lic af­ter re­cent weeks of Unit­ed States/Venezue­lan ten­sions, where pro-US Trinidad and To­ba­go has been the fall­guy.

As the lat­est ve­hi­cle for the Gov­ern­ment’s job re­cruit­ment thrust, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ex­pect an in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner—with three pos­si­bil­i­ties so far—to put T&T on the glob­al map for more than its US con­nec­tion.

Pitched by sup­port­ing acts at Thurs­day’s event, in­clud­ing en­dorsers Gre­go­ry Hill and Christo­pher Sin­kler, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments con­firmed lever­ag­ing the plans with in­ter­na­tion­al con­nec­tions made dur­ing her Unit­ed Na­tions vis­it, plus the rec­om­men­da­tions of both men, who have re­gion­al foot­prints. Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of­fi­cials said Sin­kler is an ex-Bar­ba­dos Fi­nance Min­is­ter. He al­so ac­knowl­edged that his friend­ship goes back a long way with Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh (among Thurs­day’s speak­ers). Swarats­ingh worked in Bar­ba­dos. UNC of­fi­cials said Hill al­so did.

Ques­tions on the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print in­clude cost and fi­nanc­ing, au­thor­ship of the plan (which wasn’t among cam­paign de­tails), time­lines, en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact on coastal de­vel­op­ments, and the depth of Hill and Sin­kler’s links with Gov­ern­ment—be­yond the Prime Min­is­ter’s ex­pla­na­tion of meet­ing Sin­kler in To­ba­go this week—and their pos­si­ble roles ahead.

Warm hos­pi­tal­i­ty from stu­dents and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly man­age­ment would have been wel­comed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, whose ad­dress to the THA hint­ed at pres­sure she’s faced.

That re­mains on the con­tin­u­ing US/Venezuela sto­ry—and T&T’s chap­ters, past, present, and pro­ject­ed. Gov­ern­ment’s op­tics were broad­ly askew with last Fri­day’s fran­tic pub­lic re­ac­tion, in­clud­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil head Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing un­aware of why the T&T De­fence Forces were called to base. Min­is­ters couldn’t as­sure the pan­icked pub­lic af­ter con­flict­ing US re­ports of moves on Venezuela.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s ex­pla­na­tion last Sun­day al­so raised ques­tions.

Why did the TTDF’s drill oc­cur so soon af­ter the US Marines’ train­ing, the same day news broke of ex­pect­ed moves on Venezuela (lat­er de­nied by the US Gov­ern­ment)? Two days af­ter, GPS “jam­ming” hit north­ern Venezuela and T&T. And why was a Ce­dros school the on­ly one re­ceiv­ing “hu­man­i­tar­i­an and tech­ni­cal mis­sions” from US forces, as For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com Min­is­ter Sean Sobers con­firmed? Though Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean in­di­cat­ed Marines would as­sist mul­ti­ple schools, the Prime Min­is­ter said US per­son­nel would have pro­vid­ed “tech­ni­cal and IT as­sis­tance and some hu­man­i­tar­i­an work with schools or maybe some T&T bases to up­grade.”

With the USS Ger­ald Ford air­craft car­ri­er in a hold­ing pat­tern on Thurs­day, US Gov­ern­ment mes­sages have con­tin­ued be­ing mixed on strik­ing Venezuela: doubt­ful, then bal­anced by Thurs­day’s Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans vot­ing to re­ject leg­is­la­tion that would have put a check on Trump’s abil­i­ty to launch an at­tack against Venezuela. That trans­lat­ed to the US mil­i­tary’s abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue strik­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ing near Venezuela.

But con­sid­er­a­tion of “war” must al­so be viewed in the con­text of Chi­na emerg­ing as the win­ner in re­cent US dis­cus­sions, plus the Trump Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­feat in key ar­eas of Tues­day’s may­oral and gu­ber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tions—the first since the 2024 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. A sit­u­a­tion ac­knowl­edged by some Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, cit­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s promised ex­pand­ed over­seas thrust.

De­spite the in­vit­ed diplo­mat­ic corps at the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion launch, Venezuela’s am­bas­sador—some­one la­belled by Sobers as his “good friend”—wasn’t seen.

Leav­ing be­hind com­mu­ni­ca­tion fail­ures, the depth of which was con­firmed by Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der’s new “Talk­ing Points” show de­fend­ing Gov­ern­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “To­ba­go Love” state­ments al­so ac­knowl­edged how she’s viewed.

Her vis­it sought to re­set UNC’s re­la­tions with To­ba­go from pre­vi­ous years, un­veil­ing pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments aid­ing key is­sues—econ­o­my and safe­ty—one-up­ping the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and over­all launch­ing the THA’s elec­tion cam­paign in favour of Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine. He al­so didn’t hes­i­tate to say the what’s more need­ed.

At­ten­tion is on how the PM’s promis­es ma­te­ri­alise, es­pe­cial­ly re­gard­ing au­ton­o­my—whether amend­ment will be used or ac­tion.

Plus, the THA elec­tions will show how the PNM, which has all 15 can­di­dates ready, has fared and whether it is al­so re­set­ting.