Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s at­tack on a US Am­bas­sador could have far-reach­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences for TT re­gard­ing trade and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Sun­day.

Speak­ing at the UNC’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly held in Cou­va, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said the re­sponse of the gov­ern­ment to the Venezue­lan cri­sis was in­hu­mane.

Ad­dress­ing Venezue­lans di­rect­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I can on­ly apol­o­gise for the man­ner in which the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment has treat­ed with this cri­sis and your coun­try­men and women who have sought refuge in our coun­try, on­ly to be turned away or dis­re­spect­ed”.

She added, “I tell the peo­ple of Venezuela that the Op­po­si­tion shares their de­sire for a re­turn to democ­ra­cy, peace and free­dom. I wish to re­it­er­ate that we con­demn the hu­man rights abus­es, the breach­es of the rule of law and usurpa­tion of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es tak­ing place on our doorstep. I take um­brage at the Prime Min­is­ter’s lack of deco­rum and his undiplo­mat­ic tone in deal­ing with this mat­ter in Par­lia­ment, “ Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Her com­ments came even as Guai­do turned to the mil­i­tary for sup­port of­fer­ing them amnesty.

Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro ad­dress­ing sol­diers in an ap­pear­ance on state TV, asked whether they were plot­ting with the “im­pe­ri­al­ist” Unit­ed States, which he ac­cused of open­ly lead­ing a coup against him.

About Row­ley’s chid­ing of US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said, “You can­not be bouff­ing, hu­mil­i­at­ing and os­tracis­ing our world trade part­ners and then run off to the US to ap­pear as though you are try­ing to make peace.”

She added, “While the Prime Min­is­ter waged his own war on the US am­bas­sador and Pres­i­dent Trump on the Venezue­lan mat­ter both the AG Faris (Al-Rawi) and the Plan­ning Min­is­ter (Camille) Robin­son-Reg­is could be heard and seen sup­port­ing the Prime Min­is­ter by say­ing “what could Trump do we?”

Say­ing she was not afraid of any­one from Mar­li Street where the US Em­bassy is lo­cat­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “the hasty bad de­ci­sions of our gov­ern­ment on the diplo­mat­ic front has far-reach­ing con­se­quences in the area of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and trade.”

“I am in no way in­flu­enced by the US or oth­er free world na­tions on the po­si­tion that I took. I tell Row­ley, Faris and Camille that while you and your fam­i­ly hold diplo­mat­ic pass­ports and you are pro­vid­ed with im­mu­ni­ty, over 200,000 of our cit­i­zens hold or­di­nary pass­ports with US tourist visas. So, you want to know what Trump could do to them?” she added.

She al­so not­ed that 70 per cent of T&Ts food is im­port­ed from the US at an an­nu­al cost of over US$1 bil­lion dol­lars and it was pos­si­ble that the US could im­pose sanc­tions against this.

“We ex­port over US$2.7 bil­lion ($18.9bil­lion TT) an­nu­al­ly to the US in the en­er­gy sec­tor. T&T is the biggest ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the Caribbean Basin ini­tia­tive. We re­ceive trade pref­er­ences which grant du­ty and quo­ta-free ac­cess to the US to the tune of US$400M ($2.8 bil­lion TT). Par­tic­i­pa­tion in CBI re­quires among oth­er things a waiv­er of cer­tain WTO con­di­tions. TT’s cur­rent waiv­er will ex­pire in 2021. The US pres­i­dent and Con­gress has to ap­prove re­new­ing of the agree­ment. And you want to know what Trump could do?” she said.

Say­ing T&T ben­e­fits from the CBI with over US$400M (TT$32 bil­lion) an­nu­al­ly to­geth­er with tech­ni­cal ad­vice and co­op­er­a­tion on bor­der con­trol, cus­toms and ex­cise and mu­tu­al as­sis­tance, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said Row­ley should show re­spect for the US diplo­mat.

Re­call­ing a pe­ri­od in Ja­maica when food was scarce, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed this could be T&T’s plight if we cut ties with the US.

“Be­fore stand­ing in the wrong side of his­to­ry and diplo­ma­cy and cre­at­ing bac­cha­nal and scan­dal with the US and our al­lies, they should have thought about all of these things be­fore han­dling the af­fairs of our na­tion like pave­ment pol­i­tics,” she added.