PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Maybe it is time for the Caricom secretary general to arrange a one-and-one encounter between heads of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) and its Jamaican counterpart, the Jamaican Manufacturers’ Association (JMA). Clearly these two entities need to talk, rather than keep throwing fighting words. 
Together with the selected advisers of each, the TTMA and the JMA heads could benefit from a frank exchange on trade-related matters. For what is increasingly being picked up in self-absorbed T&T are the echoes of Jamaican cries of pain.
Such cries, with the reports of the complaints giving rise to them, have been filtering down slowly to fill uncomprehending ears in Port of Spain. For it’s hard to recognise, or even conceive of, any bad attitude directed toward Jamaica from T&T in a range of areas that include trade.