The country’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar told the 80th session of the United nations General Assembly (UNGA) that while there have been objections to the US military action against drug cartels from some countries, Trinidad and Tobago wanted to remind the international community that, “unless forceful and aggressive actions are taken, these evil drug cartels will continue their societal destruction because they believe affected nations will always unreservedly subscribe to morals and ethics which they themselves blatantly flout.”

“That is why we willingly supported the international security alliance announced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, involving the US and several countries in South America to combat drug-trafficking in the hemisphere,”  she told the UNGA.

The United States has ordered an amphibious squadron to the southern Caribbean as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to address threats from Latin American drug cartels.  A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser have also been allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission.

Venezuela has since responded to what it termed the threat posed by the United States and has itself marshalled its troops along its borders.

Late last month, President Trump ordered the US military to strike a boat in the Caribbean Sea, off Venezuela, killing 11, allegedly carrying drugs, and last week, he told reporters from the Oval Office that he had strong evidence that the latest boat in which three people were killed, was also carrying drugs.

The Trinidad and Tobago government has come out publicly in support of the United States sending naval and military troops to waters near Venezuela as part of Washington’s crackdown on nacro- trafficking.

Persad Bissessar, earlier this month, praised the US military strike on an alleged drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean, saying she had  “no sympathy for traffickers” and that the US military should “kill them all violently.”

In her address to the UNGA, she said that the international community must face a hard truth in that the spirit of multilateralism is under strain, the effects of which, has begun to undermine the foundations of stability and peace.

“Trinidad and Tobago confronts conflicts that seriously threaten our stability and peace. The notion that the Caribbean is a zone of peace has become a false ideal. The reality is stark, no such peace exists today,” she claimed.

She said that for too many in the Caribbean region, peace is not daily life but an elusive promise glimpsed, never grasped and in its absence, “our citizens pay a terrible toll”.