Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ”car­cass” dis­missal of al­leged drug boat oc­cu­pants on Tues­day and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les’ “long rope for mag­ga goat” de­scrip­tion of Gov­ern­ment’s sit­u­a­tion on Wednes­day, still topped any fire­brand re­marks at yes­ter­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sit­ting.

Ex­changes showed there had been no re­cess from work for ei­ther Gov­ern­ment or Op­po­si­tion. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, de­liv­ered an­oth­er state­ment to re­in­force uni­ty with work­ers.

Even if not on the list of ap­proved ques­tions, the “ele­phant in the room” of the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber was the is­sue of the US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean - a mat­ter now di­vid­ing Cari­com’s heart­land and glob­al play­ers, East and West.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s up­com­ing at­ten­dance at the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, her first in­ter­na­tion­al ap­pear­ance af­ter no-shows at var­i­ous Cari­com sum­mits, will present her to world stage au­di­ences, dis­play­ing her lead­er­ship in the spot­light, aris­ing from T&T’s place in the US coali­tion against drug car­tels.

If Per­sad-Bisses­sar hasn’t seen Cari­com lead­ers yet, she’ll be among some at the UN­GA. An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne says he’s at­tend­ing and will speak on the US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment. Browne said, “I won’t pri­ori­tise diplo­mat­ic niceties but will send a strong mes­sage that we’re against any form of mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion in our hemi­sphere.”

Browne wel­comed US ef­forts against nar­co-traf­fick­ing, adding, “But it must done with re­spect for hu­man and con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and due process. I’m not seek­ing con­fronta­tion, sim­ply stand­ing on my un­com­pro­mis­ing prin­ci­ples of truth, peace, love and jus­tice.”

Oth­er lead­ers from Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and St Kitts (now chair­ing Cari­com) are al­so ex­pect­ed at UN­GA. It’s ahead whether Cari­com, col­lec­tive­ly, fi­nal­ly un­veils its views there.

UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res, at Cari­com’s uni­ty-themed Feb­ru­ary sum­mit, said there was “trou­ble in par­adise” on the Caribbean’s beau­ty. Cit­ing a uni­fied Caribbean as an “un­stop­pable force,” he urged lead­ers to use that pow­er to push the world to de­liv­er on its promise. Guter­res cit­ed ar­eas where a uni­fied Caribbean was cru­cial for progress, in­clud­ing peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Gov­ern­ment aides say Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress may com­bine lamen­ta­tions on T&T’s thou­sands lost to nar­co-fu­elled crime, em­pha­sis that peace can­not come with­out car­tel erad­i­ca­tion - and iron-clad sup­port for US as­sis­tance. Pres­sure on the PM, fol­low­ing her re­cent con­tro­ver­sial state­ments, was con­firmed with de­fence by front­lin­ers. Sup­port was al­so ral­lied at the Ganesh Ut­sav event, where she went to ground and where her com­ment on the need for “bel­ly” ac­knowl­edged chal­lenges her state­ments trig­gered.

An ad­dress by In­dia’s High Com­mis­sion­er there, con­veyed, in the same way the Grena­da PM’s re­cent vis­it did, that Gov­ern­ment’s re­la­tions with oth­ers con­tin­ues, de­spite their coun­try or re­gion­al group­ing hold­ing po­si­tions dif­fer­ent to her al­liances.

Be­yond what Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s US vis­it brings T&T, man­u­fac­tur­ers no longer await a re­duc­tion of the US’ 15 per cent tar­iff on T&T ex­ports. TTMA pres­i­dent Dale Par­sons says most man­u­fac­tur­ers agreed to ab­sorb half the tar­iff and im­porters in the US will pay the oth­er half - in­creas­ing cost to US con­sumers of T&T goods.

Post UN­GA’s Sep­tem­ber 27 con­clu­sion, af­ter the PM’s re­turn, Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get may be pre­sent­ed by Oc­to­ber 6, of­fi­cials hint­ed.

The pack­age is de­signed to re­turn the shine to UNC’s pro­file, af­ter stamp­ing its en­try in­to gov­ern­ment with halt­ed pro­grammes, fir­ings, State of Emer­gency and sev­er­ing the friend­ships with some neigh­bours. UNC of­fi­cials con­firm UNC mem­bers are “bawl­ing for job/op­por­tu­ni­ties.” UNC MPs’ of­fices are be­sieged by hun­dreds on con­stituen­cy days, with an av­er­age of 500 to 700 at some.

UNC’s first Bud­get’s ex­pect­ed to give with one hand and punch PNM with an­oth­er. Sources said min­is­ters’ sub­mis­sions were fi­nalised re­cent­ly. Fund­ing for pub­lic ser­vants’ set­tle­ments is re­port­ed­ly iden­ti­fied and await­ing ap­proval. Fu­ture UNC Gov­ern­ment plan­ning’s ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from the US$131m court award from the Pi­ar­co Air­port case - which was pi­lot­ed by the for­mer gov­ern­ment and AG Faris Al-Rawi.

If pres­sure de­mands that Gov­ern­ment’s best de­fence is of­fence, PNM’s pre­pared. Beck­les on Wednes­day warned the UNC would “come for” var­i­ous PN­Mites ahead. The par­ty con­tin­ues re­group­ing. PNM’s Colm Im­bert - at Wednes­day’s Diego Mar­tin West meet­ing - con­tin­ued harp­ing on PNM’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion fail­ures, Beck­les moved the par­ty on, thank­ing for­mer PM/Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley for con­tri­bu­tions.

As Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion know: no suc­cess mi­nus uni­ty.