00:00Prime Minister Kamala Pesad-Besasa responds to the U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to Venezuela
00:07that the South American country is surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the
00:13Southern Hemisphere and it will only get bigger. Trinidad and Tobago is about Trinidad and Tobago
00:19first. Our partnership with the United States is about Trinidad and Tobago, safety and security here.
00:26Those are issues for the Trump administration and for the United States. Trinidad and Tobago is no
00:33part of that blockade. We are about Trinidad and Tobago. On Trump's call for Venezuela to return
00:40oil, land and other assets, the Prime Minister said these issues belong to the United States
00:46while Trinidad and Tobago focuses on tackling drugs, human trafficking and gun running.
00:52Those may be his items on his agenda. The items on the agenda for Trinidad and Tobago is about drugs,
01:00drug running, human trafficking, gun running. That is our safety and security. They may have
01:07their own agenda there which they are free to pursue. That's their sovereignty. For me,
01:12it is about the drugs, it's about human trafficking, narco trafficking, all the horrid things.
01:18We can't be living here with over 600 murders per year, man, and feel that everything is onkidori
01:25and we are in a zone of peace. We are not. Trinidad and Tobago is definitely not in a peaceful place,
01:30but it's getting better.
01:32Passat-Bissasso reaffirmed that Trinidad and Tobago has not been asked to assist in any blockade
01:38against Venezuela.
01:39Our position is to keep TNT as safe as we can. TNT first. That will always be our position.
01:46We have no intention of engaging in any war with Venezuela. I've always said we stand in solidarity
01:53with the people of Venezuela and we will continue so to do.
01:57She also declined to comment on reports about the U.S. radar capabilities in Tobago,
02:02reported by the New York Times, citing the source as anonymous.
02:07I will not respond to an anonymous story carried in another newspaper. You all write newspapers,
02:15you know where you get your anonymous sources from, and when you don't get a source but you
02:19write a story. So I cannot respond to an anonymous source from a paper abroad. I can't respond to
02:27every newspaper article.
02:28On the termination of gas agreements by Venezuela, the Prime Minister reminded that Trinidad and
02:34Tobago has a self-sufficient energy sector and does not depend on Venezuelan supplies.
02:40And at that time I said, at this time, if we could get that gas and oil we wanted, we do not need it.
02:46We have had over 100 years of an oil and gas economy and not one drop of oil, not one drop of oil
02:55oil has come from Venezuela. We have Exxon, we have others working within our fields, we have expanded
03:00more fields. Yes, we will welcome the gas, but right now we don't need it. If they don't want to give it.
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