Defence Minister Wayne Sturge has called on the United States to provide Trinidad and Tobago with “assets”, as he emphasised yesterday that the nation’s borders were “critically” exposed.

He made the appeal in Miami, where US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hosted the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference at the US Southern Command.

The meeting took place ahead of US President Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas summit at the Trump National Doral Miami hotel in Florida, which starts at noon tomorrow.