Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is look­ing for­ward to an im­por­tant vis­it to Wash­ing­ton, DC, to­day, where she will hold talks with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.

Speak­ing while on a train en route to the US cap­i­tal yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was be­ing ac­com­pa­nied by Min­is­ters Sean Sobers, Bar­ry Padarath, Sad­dam Ho­sein, and oth­er of­fi­cials in the Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion.

“I think it’s a very im­por­tant in­vi­ta­tion to be in­vit­ed to Wash­ing­ton,” she said. “When we get there, sev­er­al ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est will be dis­cussed. Chief among those that have to do with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty, that’s prob­a­bly one on our dis­cus­sion list.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty would al­so be a ma­jor fo­cus, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s hy­dro­car­bon re­sources. “En­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty is vi­tal to us as well, with re­spect to hy­dro­car­bon re­sources that lie in our wa­ters,” she said.

She al­so high­light­ed the del­e­ga­tion’s trade agen­da.

“We have al­so se­cured Min­is­ter Sobers a meet­ing with the Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Of­fice, in ad­di­tion to Sec­re­tary Ru­bio, the trade as­pect of it, where we want to dis­cuss the tar­iffs to see how best we can make that work for us.”

Re­flect­ing on the trip so far, the Prime Min­is­ter said the del­e­ga­tion had made sig­nif­i­cant progress.

“I don’t know if en­joy­ing is the prop­er word, be­cause I think it’s been a great trip. I think we’ve made tremen­dous leaps and bounds in the first cou­ple of days. I look for­ward to the Wash­ing­ton vis­it.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that while she has vis­it­ed Wash­ing­ton be­fore, this trip car­ries par­tic­u­lar im­por­tance.

“I have been there be­fore, but this vis­it is even more im­por­tant than pre­vi­ous Wash­ing­ton vis­its, giv­en our thrust to­wards eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, of course, and the strate­gic im­por­tance of our hy­dro­car­bon re­sources.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar spent the last five days in New York, where she at­tend­ed the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), par­tic­i­pat­ing in dis­cus­sions on glob­al is­sues be­fore head­ing to Wash­ing­ton.

On Sep­tem­ber 9, the US State De­part­ment re­leased de­tails of a call be­tween Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, where the US praised her for her pub­lic sup­port of its mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the South­ern Caribbean. Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er said she would have a face-to-face meet­ing with top US of­fi­cials on the mar­gins of her trip to the UN­GA. — Chester Sam­bra­no