Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has point­ed to emerg­ing cracks with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s stance on the Mid­dle East con­flict, not­ing that two mem­bers now ap­pear to be dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s po­si­tion sup­port­ing the Unit­ed States and Is­rael in the war with Iran.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Browne said he had tak­en note of com­ments made by Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, which sug­gest­ed un­ease with the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion.

“I al­so took note of a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and then a Min­is­ter who is an elect­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, find­ing ways to dis­tance them­selves from the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the war in the Mid­dle East,” Browne said.

He added that both men have pub­licly iden­ti­fied with the Is­lam­ic faith and may have been trou­bled by of­fi­cial state­ments is­sued by the Gov­ern­ment.

On Tues­day, Min­is­ter Ho­sein said he was pray­ing for Mus­lims who are “op­pressed” and is hop­ing for peace as the US-Is­rael war with Iran con­tin­ues.

Last week, Sen­a­tor Nakhid said he had al­ready shared his con­cerns pri­vate­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter and not­ed that she has long been aware of his views on the is­sue.

“You think the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not aware of my views on these things? She’s aware of every­thing. And she’s very re­spect­ful and has al­ways been with me, very re­spect­ful. So when, as if you no­ticed, when some­one came in­to Trinidad, I was not there, she had no prob­lem what­so­ev­er,” Nakhid said.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as an “un­prece­dent­ed” ap­proach tak­en by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.

“I chal­lenge any mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment or any mem­ber of the me­dia to iden­ti­fy any oc­ca­sion pre­vi­ous to this when a gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go would have put out a me­dia re­lease ex­press­ing en­dorse­ment or sup­port for war in an­oth­er sov­er­eign coun­try with­out the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.”

He fur­ther ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent par­tic­i­pa­tion in the US-led Amer­i­ca’s Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), which was dis­cussed dur­ing the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in the Unit­ed States.

Ac­cord­ing to Browne, the coali­tion may not be as new as it has been pre­sent­ed.

Browne said he re­called a pub­lic an­nounce­ment made in Au­gust 2025 dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton DC, where then US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, seat­ed along­side US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, ref­er­enced T&T as part of a US-led coali­tion aimed at tack­ling nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

“That an­nounce­ment did not oc­cur af­ter a meet­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Cab­i­net,” he said.

“It oc­curred in Wash­ing­ton DC, when we were all sur­prised, we did not re­ceive any fore­warn­ing from our own Gov­ern­ment, when the US Sec­re­tary of State an­nounced that Trinidad and To­ba­go is part of a US-led coali­tion com­pris­ing Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries which is op­er­at­ing to stop the flow of drugs in­to the Unit­ed States.”

He ques­tioned what dis­tin­guish­es the pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced coali­tion from the lat­est arrange­ment, ask­ing the PM to pro­vide clar­i­ty.

Browne said the pub­lic de­served clar­i­ty about the na­ture of the coun­try’s in­volve­ment in US-led se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives and the im­pli­ca­tions for T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy.