- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 25/Aug 08:00

Kamla bats for Trump

MUCH has Donald Trump, 79, done in the name of “law and order.” Yet, few American presidents have been less concerned with the rule of law than he. Pardoned have been insurrectionists. Flouted have been court orders. Judges and lawyers attacked. Manifestly unlawful executive orders have been issued. Dictators, like Vladimir Putin waging an illegal war against Ukraine, have been welcomed. To this figure, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, proposes to wed this country as he picks a fight with Venezuela. Ms Persad-Bissessar, 73, is not the first to grovel before Mr Trump. Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Giorgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, Ursula von der Leyen, Alexander Stubb and Mark Rutte dropped everything to meet with him on August 18 because of concern for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The world knows the US president is not a friend of the rules-based order. Gaza, for him, can simply be co-opted for building a riviera. Behind it all is a practical consideration: American military and economic might. But the Prime Minister’s August 23 announcement backing recent US actions disturbingly confirms an ideological unity with the White House. “The US government’s deployment of American military assets into the Caribbean region to destroy the terrorist drug cartels has the full support of the government of TT,” she said, drinking the Kool Aid of the Trump administration’s conflation of war on terror with war on drugs. “Most Caribbean countries, and in particular TT, have been dealing with out-of-control crime for the last 20 years. Small island states like ours simply do not have the financial and military resources.” Not only has Ms Persad-Bissessar thus provided the Trump administration with cover for military manoeuvres, but she has gone further to import into this country the poisonous worldview of the Republican Party. It is a worldview in which America’s problems are caused by foreigners, all foreigners are criminals, criminals should be met with force, and Venezuela, Mr Trump’s latest scapegoat, is fair game. Nicolás Maduro is no paragon of virtue. Undemocratic is his regime. Unlawful are his Essequibo plans. His propaganda ploy involving Trinidad and Tobago is unacceptable. This demands a powerful response. To inspire Mr Maduro to change may need more than just the invocation of the region as a “zone of peace.” But that laudable approach from Caribbean leaders must be strongly supported and extended; the region can ill-afford to be in the middle of a conflagration. The real problem with Ms Persad-Bissessar’s embrace is that Donald Trump has no moral authority, either to fight drugs or defend democracy. Mr Trump, taking advice from Mr Putin, does not even believe in mail-in ballots. Most appallingly, the PM has sided with Irfaan Ali in jettisoning Caricom, whose unity was its strength. The reverberations will resound for generations. The post Kamla bats for Trump appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.