Antigua’s ambassador urges US to honor WTO debt to aid Barbuda relief effort

Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador in Washington wants the US government to finally make good on its outstanding World Trade Organization financial obligations to help Barbuda rebuild after Hurricane Irma.

On Tuesday, Voice of America published an interview with Ronald Sanders, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States and the Organization of American States for Antigua and Barbuda, in which Sanders detailed the destruction inflicted upon the island of Barbuda last week from Hurricane Irma’s Category 5 fury.

Sanders (pictured) noted that, unlike the region’s other island nations that were in Irma’s direct path, Antigua and Barbuda has no formal ties to Europe or America on which to rely for financial and logistical support. “At the end of the day, it is our country, we have to try our best to keep it going as best we can.”

Sanders said he was encouraged by media reports that actor Robert de Niro, who, along with Australian casino mogul James Packer, has been linked to an integrated resort project in Barbuda, had pledged to aid Barbuda’s relief effort.