The Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM af­fairs says that the re­la­tion­ship be­tween this coun­try and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca is not in jeop­ardy. In a press re­lease is­sued this af­ter­noon, the min­istry stat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter along with oth­er min­is­ters had ex­ten­sive and cor­dial dis­cus­sions with US Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo and oth­er of­fi­cials from the US Em­bassy on Wednes­day 20th May.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs:

Con­trary to any view which might be prop­a­gat­ed in some quar­ters in Trinidad and To­ba­go, that the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States is in jeop­ardy, the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go can con­firm that noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth. In fur­ther­ance of our mu­tu­al in­ter­ests, but­tressed by re­spect for each oth­er’s sov­er­eign­ty and a clear un­der­stand­ing of each oth­er’s for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tions, Trinidad and To­ba­go has con­sis­tent­ly re­mained en­gaged with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. High lev­el con­tacts be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Prime Min­is­ter are fre­quent oc­cur­rences in the con­duct of our diplo­mat­ic co­op­er­a­tion. To this end, the Prime Min­is­ter in the com­pa­ny of the Min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs and for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty held ex­ten­sive and cor­dial dis­cus­sions with US Am­bas­sador Mon­del­lo and oth­er of­fi­cials from the US Em­bassy on Wednes­day 20th May, 2020. In­clud­ed in the wide-rang­ing dis­cus­sions was Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­sire to fur­ther pro­tect its mar­itime space but be­ing con­strained by the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of suit­able off­shore ma­rine as­sets. To this end Trinidad and To­ba­go re­quest­ed from the Unit­ed States the fur­ther shar­ing of any and all per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion which may come to its at­ten­tion with re­spect to any il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ty which may oc­cur with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al or deep ocean ar­eas over which Trinidad and To­ba­go has ju­ris­dic­tion.