00:00There are still major hurdles to the free movement of people and goods under the CARICOM single market and economy.
00:08St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves singled out Trinidad and Tobago
00:14for what he sees as its reluctance to align with CARICOM on regional foreign policy.
00:20A stance, he says, that creates barriers across the region.
00:24How are you going to coordinate foreign policy in a proper way when we can't agree on a simple matter as to what constitutes a zone of peace?
00:35Trinidad and Tobago now has a view of the zone of peace, the CARICOM and Latin American areas as a zone of peace,
00:43where, in my view, it's a misguided notion.
00:50P.M. Gonsalves was referring to a recent CARICOM heads of government meeting held over the weekend
00:56where member states agreed to declare the Caribbean and Latin America a zone of peace.
01:02Trinidad and Tobago, however, reserved its position on the matter.
01:07When you talk about an area being a zone of peace, you're talking about a matter involving state actors
01:15that one state actor should not intervene or create threats of intervention or interference in another state.
01:27We're not talking about non-state actors in the definition of a zone of peace relating to drug trafficking
01:35and trafficking in arms and the like, trafficking in persons.
01:39Meanwhile, the United States has carried out seven strikes in the Caribbean Sea
01:44against suspected drug traffickers operating from Venezuela.
01:49The Passat-Bissess administration in TNT supports the U.S. war on narcotics.
01:55What may happen there would affect us in a very serious way
02:00if you have any move towards regime change in Venezuela instigated by an external force.
02:08You're going to have a lot of refugees and you're not only going to have good people move in
02:16because any time you have conflict and war, a lot of bad people move
02:21because bad people see opportunities to make money.
02:24PM Gonsalves warns that such developments could impact multiple CARICOM territories.
02:30They're going to go to Trinidad in their droves.
02:32They're going to go to Grenada.
02:33They're going to come to St. Vincent and Grenadines.
02:35And what we think now is a difficulty, it's going to become a crisis.
02:45He also addressed economic challenges, highlighting issues with non-standardized currencies
02:50for cross-border payments.
02:53St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for instance, imports roughly 80 million U.S. dollars
02:58in goods from Trinidad and Tobago annually.
03:00We pay them in U.S. dollars for petroleum products, manufacturing services of one kind or another.
03:11We sell agricultural produce to Trinidad and Tobago.
03:14Historically, we used to sell at the high point maybe 15, 20 million U.S.
03:22It has come down now to less than 4 million U.S.
03:28Because we are not getting paid in U.S. dollars.
03:33They want to pay our traders in agricultural produce in TT dollars.
03:38Having TT dollars on his island, he says, is largely useless.
03:42I've never been able to understand that in Trinidad and Tobago, you could allow, you can get foreign
03:49exchange to buy camembert cheese.
03:53You can get it to buy luxury items.
03:57You can even pay cartel, reportedly, 900,000 U.S. dollars to come to Trinidad to perform as a deposit.
04:05But you can't buy, you can't pay me in U.S. dollars for my yams, dashing, tanias, sweet potatoes.
04:11It's absolutely ridiculous.
04:14He also criticized Trinidad and Tobago's control over the Piaulco regional flight information,
04:20which covers airspace from Port of Spain up to St. Kitts,
04:23saying TNT profits from airspace owned by other islands.
04:28Arushi Tawari, Ruknarain, TV6 News.
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