“Trinidad and Tobago has no part to play in that blockade; we are about Trinidad and Tobago.”

This from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday after United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday night he was ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Persad-Bissessar was speaking with members of the media after the funeral service for Dr Daphne Phillips-Gaskin at the Trinidad Christian Center in Petit Valley.