Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General John Jeremie told the Financial Times on Nov. 13 that the U.S. Marines deployed in the region would intensify exercises in the two-island country “in the coming days.” Trinidad and Tobago are located right off the coast of Venezuela, and the American mobilization there is part of the growing U.S. threat of military action against Venezuela. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier task force is in an unknown location, somewhere en route from the eastern Atlantic in the direction of the Caribbean.
“We are engaged with our friends in the north in a series of exercises,” Jeremie said during an interview in his office in Port of Spain, the capital. He would not confirm whether the exercises had already begun. “We have a problem with gangs, drugs and criminal activity, including gang-related homicides and so on, and those things are directly linked to the flow of drugs and ammunition from Venezuela,” Jeremie said. He added that Trinidad and Tobago was “comfortable” with “an ally” providing assistance.
“I don’t think there’s a direct line between exercises and the administration’s readiness to intervene in Venezuela,” a former Defense official told FT. “But the fact that so much firepower is deployed to the region is incredibly significant.”
Jeremie admitted that his country is “not accustomed to having American warships pull up,” and that when people “see men with guns, they draw conclusions which perhaps they ought not to draw.” He added that Trinidad and Tobago was “required to co-operate in terms of allowing access to U.S. forces” due to an agreement with the U.S. on military-to-military engagement that was indefinitely renewed last December.
The FT coverage came as news reports emerged of a 20th U.S. strike against an alleged drug-smuggling boat. An unnamed Pentagon official confirmed to CBS News that the attack targeted a vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Nov. 11 and killed four people on board.
