Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela will not af­fect To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try, nor will they threat­en the coun­try’s re­gion­al or na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“There is no war. T&T is not a tar­get,” the Prime Min­is­ter said. “The tar­gets are nar­co-traf­fick­ers, gun-run­ners, and hu­man traf­fick­ers.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed claims that the is­land’s fish­er­men are be­ing ex­posed to dan­ger be­cause of re­gion­al con­flict. “A source in the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia said that Trinidad and To­ba­go is a na­tion of fish­er­men. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth. We have fish­er­men, we have oth­er in­dus­tries, we have oth­er forms of in­come,” she said as she an­swered ques­tions from re­porters out­side of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture Build­ing in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day.

She added, “The im­pres­sion is be­ing giv­en that it’s fish­er­men of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing bombed out of the sea. ‘What are you do­ing out there? Why are you so far off? Why don’t you stay in your zone? Why don’t you stay in T&T wa­ters? And you’ll be safe’.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she has no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela have im­pact­ed To­ba­go. “I have no ev­i­dence or in­for­ma­tion that those ten­sions will dam­age,” she said. “I have no ev­i­dence that your Car­ni­val last month, re­cent­ly, had 40,000 peo­ple jump­ing up in Car­ni­val, and peo­ple were in more rooms as a whole. I don’t see the im­pact. I don’t have the ev­i­dence.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so reaf­firmed that T&T will re­main part of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), shut­ting down claims that the coun­try would dis­tance it­self from the re­gion­al body.

“Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth. We re­main mem­bers of Cari­com. I have no in­ten­tion, as the Prime Min­is­ter of our coun­try and the head of my Gov­ern­ment, of leav­ing Cari­com,” she said.

She ex­plained, “What I did say, and I’ll re­peat, is we must al­so look to oth­ers. We have to look to oth­ers in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na. So, for ex­am­ple, we are look­ing to the UAE. We are look­ing to Qatar, look­ing to Bahrain. We are look­ing to Eu­rope.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said main­tain­ing and ex­pand­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships was es­sen­tial for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. “Cari­com will re­main as a bloc. We will re­main as part of the bloc. But we have to open our wings. We have to fly. We have to go else­where. We have to get in­vestors,” she said.

She added that T&T’s eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty ben­e­fits the en­tire re­gion. “Trinidad and To­ba­go is the on­ly Cari­com state that still has in­vest­ment rat­ings. If Trinidad falls, many of our Cari­com mem­bers will fall,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to the re­gion. “ ... What we (coun­tries in the re­gion) do have are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion. And that has hap­pened in the past and will hap­pen again.”