Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Sean Sobers, has maintained that military strikes carried out by the United States Government are taking place in international waters, and are therefore outside this country’s jurisdiction.
The Minister was speaking at Thursday’s Post-Cabinet Media Briefing.
Questioned on whether the United States had briefed the Trinidad and Tobago Government on the military strikes in the Caribbean Sea, Minister Sobers offered a firm “no.”
“The answer to that, in short, is no, and the reason for the answer being no, the strikes are military intervention strikes or military strikes being conducted in pursuit of a military operation by the US. There is information that the US will share, there’s information they won’t share pursuant to a military operation, which is what this is.”
With the most recent strike occurring on Wednesday, October 29th, Minister Sobers said the Government has “evidence that the strikes occurred in international waters.”
“These are strikes that are being conducted in international waters. If these strikes occurred within national waters then the US would have to share information with Trinidad and Tobago. These are not strikes that are occurring within our territorial waters, nor are they strikes that are occurring in our EEZ. They are strikes that are occurring in international waters pursuant to a military operation with entities that they have designated as terrorist organisations.”
The EEZ refers to the Exclusive Economic Zone, a maritime area extending 200 nautical miles from the Trinidad and Tobago coastline.
Minister Sobers also supported the extension of the State of Emergency for an additional six months.
“I think there has been a demonstrative and measurable decrease in crime and criminality. Additionally, in terms of what the SOE was set up for in the first place, there is information that rests with certain security agencies that will treat with the need for the extension. In terms of anything to do with Venezuela and Trinidad and it being tethered to the SOE, that does not arise at all.”
The SOE was declared on July 18th 2025, and was extended by Parliament for three months on July 28th.