GASTON BROWN RESPONDS FROM ANTIGUA

Gaston Brown, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, at the best of times is a man who does not mince words. He was furious at the attack of  Kamla Persad Bissessar , the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago on CARICOM and in particular on  Antigua and Barbuda, reeling from a decision of the United States government to ban citizens of Antigua and Barbuda from travelling to the United States. The proclamation issued by the U S president banned citizens from that country and from Dominica from coming to the US as at 1 January 2026. It was walked back some when a clarification was issued that it did not apply to those who already had visas. It appears that it was a ban on the citizenship by investment programmes of those countries and the US said that this was a security risk to their country. That information is almost certainly false and both countries said that the U S embassy had recently signed off on the arrangements. The United States has the same programmes. The Trinidad Prime Minister went out of her way to say when CARICOM issued a statement in support of Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica that Trinidad would have no part of it. That CARICOM was cozying up to a dictator in Venezuela and that the zone of peace claim for CARICOM was fakery. Mr. Brown was having none of it and pointed out the folly of the Prime Minister of Trinidad’s statements. She came back with even worse rhetoric. Some say Mr. Brown should simply have left her to her own devices since she does not speak for any country except herself and even in her own rhetoric. She does not represent the views of the local population of her country. They said she has a drinking problem and that is why she is so publicly unstable.