Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken have dis­cussed work­ing to­geth­er to crack down on guns com­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go among sev­er­al top­ics dur­ing the meet­ing at the State De­part­ment in Wash­ing­ton DC on Tues­day.

A state­ment by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said yes­ter­day that the dis­cus­sions were on mat­ters of mu­tu­al in­ter­est for both coun­tries, and in­clud­ed food se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment fi­nanc­ing, democ­ra­cy, se­cu­ri­ty and peace in the re­gion, mi­gra­tion, and the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti.

The state­ment said that the min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of the US as a strong and en­dur­ing part­ner based on shared in­ter­ests with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It said that both Browne and Blinken ex­changed per­spec­tives on a range of oth­er is­sues and both of­fi­cials com­mit­ted to ex­plor­ing ad­di­tion­al ways to work to­geth­er to re­duce the flow of il­le­gal guns in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion.

Cari­com chair­man Ba­hami­an Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis re­cent­ly called on the Unit­ed States to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the il­le­gal gun trade in the re­gion, at a me­dia con­fer­ence ahead of the 44th meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com.

He had said Cari­com was hav­ing dis­cus­sions with both the Unit­ed States and Cana­da on both is­sues.

The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs al­so said that Min­is­ter Browne high­light­ed events such as the US-CARI­COM dis­cus­sions at the 9th Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Los An­ge­les, which have cre­at­ed a clos­er work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the US and CARI­COM, and the re­cent US-CARI­COM Sum­mit at the 44th Meet­ing of CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment in the Ba­hamas and re­mind­ed of the up­com­ing CARI­COM Sym­po­sium on Crime as a Pub­lic Health Con­cern to be host­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go," the state­ment added.

It said that Blinken ac­knowl­edged the strate­gic im­por­tance of Trinidad and To­ba­go and un­der­scored the com­mit­ment of the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion to build­ing on the ex­ist­ing strong re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, and to fol­low­ing up on com­mit­ments made at the 9th Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, which was held in Los An­ge­les in June 2022.

Min­is­ter Browne was ac­com­pa­nied by Am­bas­sador of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the US Brigadier Gen­er­al (Ret’d) An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, along with se­nior mem­bers of staff of the Em­bassy, while Sec­re­tary Blinken was joined by US Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­dace Bond and oth­er se­nior mem­bers of staff of the US De­part­ment of State.

Min­is­ter Browne al­so met with Se­nior Di­rec­tor of the At­lantic Coun­cil’s Adri­enne Ar­sht Latin Amer­i­ca Cen­tre Ja­son Mar­czak and As­so­ciate Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Ini­tia­tive at the At­lantic Coun­cil’s Adri­enne Ar­sht Latin Amer­i­ca Cen­tre Waz­im Mowla on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, dis­cus­sions fo­cused on the Coun­cil’s ad­vo­ca­cy at the US Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on be­half of Caribbean coun­tries, on re­gion­al pri­or­i­ties such as de-risk­ing and cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing, fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment fi­nanc­ing, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, and cli­mate change.

The min­istry's state­ment said the min­is­ter ex­pressed his grat­i­tude to the Coun­cil for its sup­port for the re­gion and wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work to­geth­er to raise aware­ness and ad­vance the in­ter­ests of the Caribbean with key pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers in Wash­ing­ton DC.

T&T's em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton DC al­so host­ed a lun­cheon in ho­n­our of non-res­i­dent mis­sions in Wash­ing­ton DC ac­cred­it­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The min­istry said that the meet­ing pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther strength­en ex­ist­ing re­la­tions with the coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed and to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­creased co­op­er­a­tion.