Kamla aligned T&T's foreign policy to Trump. Now what?

DURING her past two years in office, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has moved the country closer to the foreign policy and security agenda of the Donald Trump-led US administration, criticising its former Democratic administration while welcoming a greater US presence in the region and backing an aggressive and deadly campaign against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea.

Persad-Bissessar has made little attempt to conceal her affinity for the US President, at one time lauding his "fighting spirit" while later allowing the installation of a US military radar within the island territory and offering "unflinching" access to US forces in the lead-up to the military ouster of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

Now, with democrats set to take control of both chambers of the US Congress after midterm elections, winning seats in states typically considered Republican-controlled, and defeating candidates endorsed by Trump himself, this alignment is set to face a new test.