Gail Alexan­der

Cari­com and Trinidad and To­ba­go are look­ing for­ward to work­ing with new US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

Guardian Me­dia was told Cari­com chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day sent a con­grat­u­la­to­ry let­ter to Biden, who took the oath of of­fice along­side Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris yes­ter­day.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so say the T&T Gov­ern­ment is ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing work­ing with Biden on a range of is­sues and build­ing on “the long his­to­ry of ex­cel­lent re­la­tions be­tween both na­tions.”

Biden and Har­ris were sworn in at Capi­tol Hill in a cer­e­mo­ny which fea­tured ex­tra tight se­cu­ri­ty due to the re­cent storm­ing of Capi­tol Hill by ri­ot­ers loy­al to out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. The usu­al crowds were al­so not al­lowed for the in­au­gur­al pa­rade due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Yes­ter­day, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Browne said, “The Gov­ern­ment of T&T wish­es the best for the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States and was pleased with the ad­vent of a peace­ful and or­der­ly Pres­i­den­tial in­au­gu­ra­tion in Wash­ing­ton DC.”

Browne said the min­istry fol­lowed the in­au­gu­ra­tion pro­ceed­ings close­ly and al­so linked with T&T’s Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton.

Biden, in his first speech yes­ter­day, had said the US un­der­stood that the world was watch­ing that coun­try yes­ter­day. To those, Biden said: “So here’s my mes­sage to those be­yond our bor­ders. Amer­i­ca has been test­ed and we’ve come out stronger for it. We will re­pair our al­liances, and en­gage with the world once again. Not to meet yes­ter­day’s chal­lenges but to­day’s and to­mor­row’s chal­lenges. And we’ll lead not mere­ly by the ex­am­ple of our pow­er but the pow­er of our ex­am­ple.”