An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has launched what ap­pears to be a sting­ing re­buke of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over com­ments wide­ly in­ter­pret­ed as en­dors­ing si­lence and def­er­ence to­ward the Unit­ed States in ex­change for pro­tec­tion and visa ac­cess.

Speak­ing at a re­cent Christ­mas event, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as “se­lec­tive out­rage” to­ward the Unit­ed States by peo­ple who ben­e­fit from ac­cess to that coun­try, warn­ing that pub­lic crit­i­cism could car­ry con­se­quences.

In re­marks that have since re­ver­ber­at­ed across the re­gion, she point­ed to new­ly an­nounced US trav­el re­stric­tions af­fect­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca.