In­de­pen­dence Day greet­ings for this coun­try poured in from both re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies yes­ter­day. Even glob­al in­ter­net search en­gine gi­ant Google joined in with its own trib­ute.

In his In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to the na­tion, Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Antony J Blinken said the US was look­ing for­ward to broad­en­ing its co-op­er­a­tion with Trinidad and To­ba­go in tack­ling is­sues such as crime and cli­mate change.

Blinken said, “On be­half of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, I con­grat­u­late the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go as you cel­e­brate 61 years of in­de­pen­dence. As we con­sid­er the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties this year will bring, the Unit­ed States looks for­ward to work­ing with Trinidad and To­ba­go as stead­fast al­lies and part­ners, unit­ed by our com­mon val­ues of re­silien­cy, di­ver­si­ty, and democ­ra­cy.”

The Sec­re­tary of State added, “We al­so look for­ward to broad­en­ing our co-op­er­a­tion un­der the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive (CB­SI) and the US-Caribbean Part­ner­ship to Ad­dress the Cli­mate Cri­sis (PACC 2030). We wish you a fruit­ful year ahead and look for­ward to work­ing to­geth­er for a brighter fu­ture for both na­tions.”

US Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­dace Bond al­so sent a mes­sage to this coun­try.

In a video mes­sage post­ed to the US Em­bassy’s so­cial me­dia pages, Am­bas­sador Bond re­it­er­at­ed her coun­try’s com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing the bond be­tween the two na­tions. She called the US, T&T’s great­est friend.

“The Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go have a deep and in­ter­twined his­to­ry built up­on our shared in­ter­ests. And as your great­est friend and neigh­bour, we are com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the bonds of friend­ship as we cel­e­brate our shared val­ues of democ­ra­cy and di­ver­si­ty and con­tin­ue to work to im­prove our very strong bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions on se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate, eco­nom­ics and cul­tur­al ties. To­day, as you cel­e­brate with friends and fam­i­ly at the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade or var­i­ous limes around the coun­try, I ex­tend the best wish­es for con­tin­ued peace, growth and pros­per­i­ty. Hap­py In­de­pen­dence Day!” said Bond.

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, Cari­com al­so cel­e­brat­ed the 61st In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary with T&T.

Cari­com praised this coun­try for mak­ing its mark on the world stage.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day it said, “The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to make its mark of ex­cel­lence glob­al­ly through its vi­brant and dy­nam­ic con­tri­bu­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of mu­sic, art and sports.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has played an in­te­gral role in the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment, as one of the orig­i­nal sig­na­to­ries to the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas and the birth­place of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty,” it added.

And in­ter­net search en­gine Google, lit­er­al­ly flew the flag of T&T high.

It fea­tured the flag wav­ing in the sky on its Google Doo­dle.

With the click of a but­ton, users from any­where in the world were able to learn about this coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence Day, T&T’s his­to­ry, the na­tion­al flag and much more.