For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force will take part in joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the Unit­ed States 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit from 16–21 No­vem­ber, 2025. It was con­firmed dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing.

Sobers said the ac­tiv­i­ty forms part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long-stand­ing se­cu­ri­ty part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States through US South­ern Com­mand. He linked the ex­er­cis­es to the coun­try’s on­go­ing strug­gle with gun-re­lat­ed crime and gang vi­o­lence, say­ing Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to restor­ing or­der and en­sur­ing se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel are prop­er­ly trained and equipped.

He said the en­gage­ment will fo­cus on mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary train­ing, al­low­ing both forces to work with each oth­er’s equip­ment, tac­tics and tech­niques. Ex­er­cis­es will take place na­tion­wide in ur­ban and rur­al en­vi­ron­ments, in­clud­ing op­er­a­tions at dusk and af­ter dark, and will in­volve Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit he­li­copters.

Sobers added that the ini­tia­tive must be viewed against the back­drop of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s crime sit­u­a­tion. “When you jux­ta­pose those sta­tis­tics to oth­er coun­tries with­in the Caribbean re­gion, who record some­times four mur­ders for the month and 40-some­thing mur­ders for the year, and they're ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a crime wave, you can un­der­stand why we are in a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry,” he said. He added that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to make Trinidad and To­ba­go “a zone of peace,” and ac­cept­ing re­gion­al mil­i­tary as­sis­tance is one el­e­ment of that plan.

He said most peo­ple con­tin­ue to go about their dai­ly lives safe­ly and re­ject­ed claims that cit­i­zens are too afraid to en­gage in rou­tine ac­tiv­i­ties. “If it is fish­er­men, for ex­am­ple, had this in­ert fear about ven­tur­ing out in­to the sea that is be­ing ped­dled by some per­sons, the cost of fish would be as­tro­nom­i­cal­ly high,” he said, adding that le­git­i­mate fish­er­men con­tin­ue to ply their trade.

Sobers said the joint ex­er­cis­es re­flect a strong part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States. He added that the US Em­bassy will al­so con­duct out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties with schools, fol­low­ing ear­li­er do­na­tions of equip­ment and in­fra­struc­ture up­grades.