For­mer T&T prime min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer Ja­maican prime min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son have re­buked T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s clap­back at their re­cent con­cerns about the ex­pand­ed US em­bar­go against Cu­ba, point­ing out that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment had sup­port­ed an end to the em­bar­go.

Row­ley and Pat­ter­son is­sued state­ments yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pot­shots af­ter they and six for­mer Cari­com lead­ers last week ex­pressed con­cern about the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of the US block­ade on oil sup­plies from third coun­tries to Cu­ba. The US threat­ened trade tar­iffs on such sup­pli­ers.

Deem­ing it ter­ror­ist eco­nom­ic war­fare, the for­mer Cari­com lead­ers called on the US to re­peal its “weapon of mass de­struc­tion.”