The of­fi­cial vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go by US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau is yet an­oth­er step in what I have called “the new mo­men­tum” in T&T/US re­la­tions un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The Unit­ed States is T&T’s largest trad­ing part­ner and most im­por­tant source of for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. Most crit­i­cal­ly, the world’s su­per­pow­er and lead­ing democ­ra­cy is in our hemi­spher­ic neigh­bour­hood. To­day, when un­cer­tain­ties grow from weak­en­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, there can hard­ly be any­thing more im­por­tant in the for­eign re­la­tions of small and vul­ner­a­ble na­tions like T&T and those in Cari­com than strong re­la­tions with the glob­al gi­ant amongst us.

I have al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed for close US ties. I have said, “it would be ut­ter­ly fool­ish and fool­hardy for any coun­try in our re­gion to not want a close re­la­tion­ship with the in­dis­pens­able na­tion next door.”

When I re­turned as this coun­try’s for­eign min­is­ter un­der the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion, one of my first acts was to sug­gest to a Cari­com for­eign min­is­ters meet­ing in Ja­maica that we move to­ward a first-ever sum­mit of Cari­com lead­ers and the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

My sug­ges­tion pro­duced some con­ster­na­tion, scep­ti­cism and much de­bate around the ta­ble. But, sup­port­ed by chair­man of the meet­ing, then Cari­com sec­re­tary gen­er­al Ed­win Car­ring­ton, the idea pre­vailed and the meet­ing man­dat­ed that the sug­ges­tion be put to Cari­com Heads at their up­com­ing Heads of Gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence. So said, so done. Heads agreed we should pur­sue the pos­si­bil­i­ty.

I was placed among the lead­er­ship of the Cari­com team to­wards this goal and with in­valu­able sup­port from the Sec­re­tari­at and my own Cari­com and Caribbean coun­tries di­vi­sion at Knowsley in Port-of-Spain, we got US agree­ment for the meet­ing.

In­tense, com­pre­hen­sive prepa­ra­tions on two main themes, Trade, In­vest­ment, Fi­nance and the En­vi­ron­ment and Jus­tice and Se­cu­ri­ty, pre­ced­ed the ar­rival of then Pres­i­dent William Jef­fer­son Clin­ton in Bar­ba­dos on May 10th, 1997, for that his­toric sum­mit with Cari­com Heads. Con­struc­tive har­mo­nious talks en­sued and the lead­ers signed the ‘Bar­ba­dos De­c­la­ra­tion of Prin­ci­ples and Plan of Ac­tion for Pros­per­i­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty’ to guide Cari­com/US re­la­tions in­to the fu­ture.

And it didn’t stop there. Af­ter the sum­mit, two meet­ings were held for fol­low-up ac­tion, one in Port-of Spain and the oth­er in New Or­leans, be­tween Cari­com for­eign min­is­ters and the US Sec­re­tary of State, both of which I co-chaired along with US Sec­re­tary Made­line Al­bright. This was the lev­el of close­ness be­ing de­vel­oped be­tween Cari­com and the Unit­ed States as the 20th Cen­tu­ry drew to a close.

But there was no re­al cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of that crit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment dur­ing the al­most en­tire first quar­ter of the 21st cen­tu­ry. A tru­ly trag­ic squan­der­ing of op­por­tu­ni­ty epit­o­mised by the ut­ter­ly dis­as­trous state­ments and at­ti­tudes to­wards the US by a re­cent for­mer prime min­is­ter of this coun­try. Thank­ful­ly, the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion came in and over its first year in of­fice, we have seen a re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of this most im­por­tant re­la­tion­ship for T&T.

Amer­i­ca re­mains a crit­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty al­ly for this coun­try. The im­por­tance of this bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship is to­day fur­ther ac­cen­tu­at­ed by the un­cer­tain­ties that in­creas­ing­ly char­ac­terise the glob­al are­na and which stem from the col­lapse of an in­ter­na­tion­al or­der painstak­ing­ly es­tab­lished over 60 years af­ter World War II.

This glob­al malaise ac­cen­tu­ates our own present eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and the en­dur­ing fragili­ty of our de­fence ca­pa­bil­i­ty in the face of any su­pe­ri­or ex­ter­nal threat from our own neigh­bour­hood and be­yond.

This Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing steps to cor­rect our con­di­tion. At the in­vi­ta­tion of the US gov­ern­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­it­ed the Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand (South­com) in Do­ral, Flori­da, where dis­cus­sions cen­tred on col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts to strength­en the de­fence part­ner­ship be­tween both na­tions.

We al­so must recog­nise that the sov­er­eign­ty, democ­ra­cy and good gov­er­nance of our small and vul­ner­a­ble na­tion are al­so threat­ened by non-state ac­tors like in­ter­na­tion­al crime syn­di­cates, in­clud­ing drug car­tels and arms and hu­man traf­fick­ers op­er­at­ing in our re­gion. It would there­fore be ir­ra­tional for T&T to not want a close re­la­tion­ship with the colos­sus next door. We are now part of the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion, a his­toric hemi­spher­ic shield led by the US against nar­co-traf­fick­ing in the hemi­sphere.

The ob­vi­ous course for this coun­try should be to main­tain friend­ly re­la­tions with all na­tions, strength­en mul­ti­lat­er­al ties and frame­works, but re­tain spe­cial em­pha­sis on main­tain­ing strong and close re­la­tions with our gi­ant next door.

As I have told Cari­com, it is a sen­si­ble, prag­mat­ic ap­proach to for­eign re­la­tions that small, vul­ner­a­ble states like ours must adopt to se­cure their in­ter­ests with­out com­pro­mis­ing their com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy and fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and free­doms.

The US is no au­toc­ra­cy. Its cit­i­zens en­joy the full free­doms of the free state. Here is the chance to main­tain your in­de­pen­dence and ideals, your mul­ti­lat­er­al ties and frame­works, but al­so strength­en your re­la­tions with the most pow­er­ful na­tion in the his­to­ry of hu­man­i­ty.

Ex­ces­sive ide­o­log­i­cal pre­oc­cu­pa­tions can be counter-pro­duc­tive. We must be wise to know where our se­cu­ri­ty lies. Take ad­van­tage of prox­im­i­ty to the world’s on­ly su­per­pow­er. Cul­ti­vate the gi­ant next door.