Di­vi­sions in Cari­com aren’t new since one of the things Cari­com has been strug­gling with is speak­ing with one voice and T&T has been a fore­run­ner in seek­ing this, says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

“Speak­ing with one voice is an ob­jec­tive, it’s a po­ten­tial and we al­ways work to­wards that. It’s not al­ways achieved, but we al­ways trav­el in hope of ar­riv­ing at the best des­ti­na­tion,” Row­ley added in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

He was re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion queries on whether de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela may have ren­dered Cari­com vul­ner­a­ble and more sus­cep­ti­ble to “com­pet­ing bi­lat­er­al al­liances” which now hold the po­ten­tial to un­der­mine re­cent Cari­com’s ini­tia­tives to quick­en the pace of its Sin­gle Mar­ket and the Econ­o­my (CSME).

Row­ley said to pre­tend that di­vi­sion in Cari­com is new or could be avoid­ed by the ac­tion of any prime min­is­ter “ ... is to be naive or mis­chie­vous. Cari­com has 14 na­tions, many of which guard cer­tain po­si­tions very jeal­ous­ly. In re­cent times, the Venezuela is­sue was one of the few times Cari­com spoke with one voice.”

On yes­ter­day’s meet­ing by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump with four Caribbean lead­ers - from which T&T and Cari­com were ex­clud­ed - Row­ley replied to UNC MPs, “I don’t know that T&T or any­one was de­lib­er­ate­ly, un­wit­ting­ly or ac­ci­den­tal­ly in­vit­ed to any­one’s pri­vate home. The in­vi­ta­tion wasn’t to Cari­com, we don’t go around beg­ging for in­vi­ta­tions.”

Row­ley re­it­er­at­ed that the Caribbean in­vi­tees - Ja­maica, Ba­hamas, Haiti and St Lu­cia - were mem­bers of the Li­ma Group of states and the Caribbean coun­tries which weren’t in­vit­ed, aren’t part of the Li­ma en­ti­ty. He added that the ac­tions of the Li­ma Group aren’t ap­plic­a­ble to T&T.

He said he’s con­stant­ly in touch with Cari­com col­leagues and the chair­man, but he wasn’t the one to say what his col­leagues think about the meet­ing. Row­ley said Cari­com has a cau­cus that re­sponds on such is­sues.

Nor does T&T have any re­la­tion­ship to re­pair with the Unit­ed States on the is­sue.

“As far as I’m aware, there’s no tear in TT-US re­la­tions. The US re­mains a friend­ly coun­try and in so far as hav­ing a dis­agree­ment on the ap­proach of Venezuela, it has noth­ing to do with the re­la­tions be­tween the peo­ple of T&T and the peo­ple of the US - notwith­stand­ing Op­po­si­tion’s ef­forts to cre­ate that kind of di­vi­sion!” Row­ley added

Row­ley re­buffed UNC MP Rod­ney Charles’ query on whether his “cold­ness” caused T&T’s ex­clu­sion. He said he didn’t know that any­one who dined with con­tro­ver­sial French far-right leader Ma­rine Le Pen and “sold T&T out for a plate of food” should be con­cerned about T&T’s po­si­tion.

On whether Gov­ern­ment would dis­tance it­self from Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro’s regime if the sit­u­a­tion there de­te­ri­o­rates, he said T&T would “take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion at the ap­pro­pri­ate time on any is­sue.”