PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister has retracted comments claiming no U.S. marines were currently in the two-island nation — a development that comes as the U.S. government seeks allies amid ongoing strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and beyond.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told reporters Thursday that US Marines were at the airport on the island of Tobago working on its radar, runway and road just days after she said they left.
“They will help us improve our surveillance and radar intelligence for narco-traffickers in our waters and outside our waters,” she said, without providing details.
Trinidad and Tobago’s attorney general, and the ministers of defense and internal security did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Friday.
It was not clear if the US government plans to use the radar they are working on at the Tobago airport.
It was also unclear if they were installing a new radar or upgrading the current one.
Persad-Bissessar met on Wednesday with General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the primary military adviser to US President Donald Trump, who traveled to Trinidad and Tobago.
A day after the visit, Persad-Bissessar told reporters that Trinidad was not asked to be a base for any attack against Venezuela, and that Venezuela was not mentioned in recent conversations with the United States.
Officials in Tobago have confirmed that at least one US military plane recently hit the island, saying it was for refueling purposes.
Earlier this year, the United States approached the eastern Caribbean island of Grenada and asked if they could install a temporary radar at its main international airport, but officials there have not said whether they would authorize such a move.
Grenada, like Trinidad and Tobago, is close to Venezuela, with some experts saying the ongoing US military build-up in the Caribbean, the largest in generations, is a tactic to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to resign.
Earlier this week, the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, announced that he will allow the US government temporary access to restricted areas at an air base and at the main international airport of the Caribbean country to help the United States in its ongoing fight against drug trafficking. He made the announcement with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by his side.
The American attacks that began in early September killed at least 83 people.
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