Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is back in Wash­ing­ton again this week for talks with top-lev­el Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

And not for the first time, his del­e­ga­tion, which in­cludes gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and oth­er dig­ni­taries, has sought to fur­ther dis­cus­sions on eco­nom­ic and en­er­gy mat­ters.

How­ev­er, Mon­day’s meet­ing with top of­fi­cials at the Pen­ta­gon, cre­ates some lev­el of op­ti­mism that much-need­ed at­ten­tion is now be­ing paid to the burn­ing is­sue of crime, with of­fi­cials now plac­ing em­pha­sis on part­ner­ships that can al­le­vi­ate this mat­ter of se­ri­ous con­cern for res­i­dents of T&T.

With the talks on­go­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to de­ci­pher at this point ex­act­ly what is on the ta­ble, with of­fi­cial re­ports yes­ter­day from the Pen­ta­gon and US De­part­ment of De­fense and a state­ment is­sued by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter keep­ing pri­vate the de­tails of the mea­sures dis­cussed.

Yet, un­like his pre­vi­ous trips to Wash­ing­ton for diplo­mat­ic talks, we have been in­formed that the Prime Min­is­ter met with the Crim­i­nal In­tel­li­gence Agency (CIA) and was giv­en an as­sur­ance that the US is com­mit­ted to as­sist­ing T&T and the Cari­com re­gion with an­ti-crime ef­forts.

Among the is­sues dis­cussed were il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of drugs and weapons, mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, de­fence force mod­erni­sa­tion and train­ing, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, and frame­works to fa­cil­i­tate ex­pand­ed bi­lat­er­al se­cu­ri­ty co-op­er­a­tion.

T&T is among re­gion­al na­tions that have com­plained about the large in­flux of il­le­gal weapons orig­i­nat­ing in the US that are be­ing blamed for in­creas­es in mur­der rates.

While this week’s meet­ings in the US are a step in the right di­rec­tion, they must be backed by tan­gi­ble com­mit­ments mea­sured by an even­tu­al re­duc­tion in the mur­der rate over the year.

Dr Row­ley knows on­ly too well that the coun­try will not mea­sure suc­cess by good diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and strong promis­es if blood con­tin­ues to flow in the streets.

His Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to promise, year af­ter year, to fix the crime sit­u­a­tion, so far with­out any re­al suc­cess. His lat­est promise is an in­jec­tion of $100 mil­lion in­to the mil­i­tary to as­sist the po­lice in the crime fight in hotspot com­mu­ni­ties, with­out the coun­try be­ing giv­en any clear idea of how this will work.

In the mean­time, T&T has reg­is­tered 39 mur­ders in the first 30 days of 2024, while the US and oth­er na­tions con­tin­ue to up­grade their crime warn­ings and trav­el ad­vi­sories with re­spect to this coun­try.

As con­cerns about crime abound, the Prime Min­is­ter has ap­peared more in­ter­est­ed in shoot­ing down the Op­po­si­tion’s pro­pos­als is­sued through a se­ries of an­ti-crime talks it is now host­ing, than in out­lin­ing a clear and prop­er plan on the way for­ward.

His re­turn from the US of­fers an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to give the coun­try a prop­er sense of where we are head­ing and how en­hanced co­op­er­a­tion with the world’s most pow­er­ful na­tion is en­vis­aged, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­duc­ing the drugs that fu­el gang war­fare and the weapons used to car­ry out the heinous mur­ders we have seen in the last few years.

Above all, it will be the re­sults in the up­com­ing months that will sure­ly tell us if these dis­cus­sions were mean­ing­ful or if they re­dound to just more talk than ac­tion.