Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in a Unit­ed States-led re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive has di­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts, with some de­scrib­ing it as an im­por­tant step in tack­ling transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime while oth­ers warn it could ex­pose the coun­try to new le­gal, diplo­mat­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal risks.

The dif­fer­ing as­sess­ments fol­low re­ports that the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) will par­tic­i­pate in the Joint Task Force West­ern Hemi­sphere (JTF-WHEM), a US-led Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing the 18-mem­ber Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion (A3C).

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in T&T said the se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion re­flects a shared com­mit­ment to de­fend sov­er­eign­ty, strength­en re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and con­front nar­co-ter­ror­ist net­works.