by Linda Straker
- In August 2025, Trump Administration requested to temporarily install radar equipment at MBIA
- Government’s decision will not be a secret, neither will it violate domestic or international laws
- Deadline for decision not provided
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has given the assurance that the government’s decision whether to allow the Donald Trump Administration to install a temporary radar at the Maurice Bishop International Airport (MBIA) will not be a secret, nor will it be one that violates domestic or international laws.
“We will not enter into an agreement which, from a Grenada perspective, has any possibility of violating Grenada’s domestic law or violating international law. As it stands right now, like I said, the technical discussions are largely what have been taking place,” he told the Lower House of Parliament during the 4 November sitting. “I wish to assure the public that we will not make any decisions on this matter in secret and not disclosed to the public, and in any event, it cannot be kept a secret, you cannot hide a radar if it’s at the Maurice Bishop International Airport,” he added.
In August 2025, the Trump Administration made a request to the government seeking permission to temporarily install radar equipment and associated technical personnel at MBIA.
Prime Minister Mitchell, who is also the Minister for National Security and Civil Aviation, told Parliament that the request included first an opportunity for the US Southern Command to access the site, and following the assessment, they indicated that there were 2 sites that were feasible.
“In light of the ongoing discussion that we would have held with them on the technical issues, they have come back and indicated that they are interested perhaps in one site. They have also indicated that they wish to have a response by a particular time,” he said without disclosing the deadline provided.
“We have not been able to provide that response for the simply reason, just from a technical point of view we are not a in position to satisfy ourselves as to the safety and other technical requirements as to whether or not it will be safe at the airport,” he said, stressing that technical discussions are largely what is currently taking place.
Grenada and the US Government, through its various law enforcement agencies, have ongoing cooperation agreements which focus on several areas of national and regional security.
They once had a naval base located in Tetron Chaguramas Trinidad that they left in 1967 and decommissioned it in 1977, and the radar station was the last to leave. Why don’t they return to the site and erect what they are pushing on to Grenada? Prime Minister Kamala Persad Bissessar should tell them to use the old site in Chaguramas.
Exactly!