Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es be­tween the US Ma­rine Corps’ 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit (MEU) and the T&T De­fence Force were set to be­gin to­day, sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cials re­mained tight-lipped about the de­tails of the op­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, mul­ti­ple De­fence Force sources told Guardian Me­dia that even se­nior of­fi­cers had not been briefed on the ex­er­cis­es or their scope.

Speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, one source said that as of Sat­ur­day morn­ing, nei­ther he nor oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers had re­ceived any in­for­ma­tion and first heard about the ex­er­cis­es from Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Fri­day.

“In an­tic­i­pa­tion of any joint train­ing in­volv­ing for­eign mil­i­tary part­ners, lo­cal per­son­nel are usu­al­ly giv­en suf­fi­cient time to mo­bilise and pre­pare. This is typ­i­cal­ly co­or­di­nat­ed through De­fence Force Head­quar­ters,” the source said.

He added that prop­er plan­ning en­sures the right per­son­nel are se­lect­ed and vet­ted for par­tic­i­pa­tion. “You don’t want a sol­dier flagged for gang af­fil­i­a­tion or oth­er is­sues in­volved in this kind of train­ing,” he said.

The source ex­pressed con­cern over the tim­ing. “These ex­er­cis­es start to­mor­row, and we haven’t re­ceived any word. Or­ders were is­sued on Fri­day, but no de­tails on the joint train­ing were in­clud­ed. Some­times in­struc­tions ar­rive af­ter ex­er­cis­es be­gin, but giv­en the scale and in­volve­ment of for­eign troops, this is un­usu­al.”

He not­ed that or­gan­is­ing such ex­er­cis­es re­quires ad­vance co­or­di­na­tion with the heads of the Reg­i­ment and the Coast Guard, ap­provals for arms and am­mu­ni­tion through Cus­toms, and lo­gis­ti­cal plan­ning in­clud­ing meals and ac­com­mo­da­tions for per­son­nel.

Guardian Me­dia reached out re­peat­ed­ly to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and Chief of De­fence Staff Capt Don Po­lo via phone and What­sApp, but nei­ther re­spond­ed by press time on Sat­ur­day.

On Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon, the US South­ern Com­mand post­ed on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) an im­age of an MV-22B Os­prey tiltro­tor air­craft con­duct­ing flight op­er­a­tions from the USS Iwo Ji­ma in the Caribbean. Sim­i­lar air­craft were seen at the Ch­aguara­mas he­li­port ear­li­er this year dur­ing train­ing ex­er­cis­es.

Hours lat­er, the US Em­bassy in T&T is­sued a me­dia re­lease high­light­ing the his­to­ry of US-T&T mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing joint train­ing, Sub­ject Mat­ter Ex­change (SME), and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach ini­tia­tives, such as the US Navy’s work in re­pair­ing the Lochmaben RC School in Ce­dros and do­nat­ing com­put­ers.

Guardian Me­dia’s ef­forts to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion

Nov 11, 2025: Six ques­tions sent to the Min­istry of De­fence’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit re­gard­ing US mil­i­tary pres­ence, drone op­er­a­tions, and po­ten­tial T&T in­volve­ment in re­gion­al con­flict. No re­sponse.

Nov 12: At­tempt­ed to speak with Capt Don Po­lo af­ter Cari­com IM­PACS Firearms Roadmap cer­e­mo­ny; he de­clined to com­ment.

Nov 13: Ques­tions sent via What­sApp to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge re­gard­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s re­marks about in­ten­si­fy­ing US op­er­a­tions; no re­sponse.

Nov 14: Fol­low-up ques­tions to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge; no re­sponse.

Nov 15: Fur­ther What­sApp queries to De­fence Min­is­ter Sturge and Chief of De­fence Staff Capt Don Po­lo re­gard­ing the ex­er­cis­es; no re­sponse re­ceived.