PRIME MINISTER Freundel Stuart says he isn’t planning to pick a fight with Trinidad and Tobago over that country’s blocking of Bajan goods, but he does plan to warn the twin-island republic that it has too much to lose in Barbados to risk that mistake again.
When he meets Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the 33rd Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which begins this morning, Stuart will make it clear that Barbados will not be pushed around.
“Trinidad has massive interests in Barbados and it cannot serve the interest of the government of Trinidad and Tobago or it cannot serve Trinidad and Tobago as a country to be rubbing Barbadians the wrong way,” Stuart said yesterday, after chairing a near four-hour meeting of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) at the Bay Gardens Hotel in Gros Islet, St Lucia.
Stuart added: “I have made that clear already when we discussed the fishing challenges when I met with the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago late last year to discuss a protocol to deal with that and I will have to highlight that again.”
