U.S. Vice President JD Vance used Trinidad and Tobago for example of excessive crime whereas defending President Donald Trump’s safety crackdown in Washington, D.C., throughout a go to to Union Station on Wednesday.
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Vance was booed by protesters as he greeted Nationwide Guard troops alongside Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and White Home Deputy Chief of Workers Stephen Miller. He mentioned crime statistics within the metropolis had been “massively underreported” and described Washington as overrun by “drug addicts,” “vagrants,” and the “chronically homeless.” Protesters chanted “disgrace” and “we would like the navy out of our streets.”
“You hear these guys exterior, they seem to hate the concept Individuals can get pleasure from their communities, and so they do the truth that DC per week in the past had a better homicide fee than Trinidad and Tobago, which the US State Division has mentioned you shouldn’t go to as a result of it’s unsafe. We ought to have the ability to get pleasure from nice American cities. That’s what we’re making an attempt to do within the Trump administration,” Vance mentioned.
Native media reported that homicides in Washington, D.C., have decreased in 2025. Via August 11, 2025, police reported 99 homicides, in contrast with 112 in the identical interval of 2024. In the meantime, Trinidad and Tobago recorded 235 murders by the identical date in 2025, down from 400 in 2024. The island is, nonetheless, below a state of emergency.
The go to got here simply 9 days after the Trump administration enforced a federal intervention to deal with crime within the nation’s capital. Throughout their remarks, protests over the federal takeover of town in addition to the continuing Israel-Hamas battle erupted within the background.
Vance mentioned the go to, which befell inside Union Station’s Shake Shack restaurant, was supposed to thank the Nationwide Guard and police for “truly conserving this place protected.”
The Vice President claimed that because the begin of the federal takeover, Washington, D.C., has seen a 35% discount in violent crime and an over 50% discount in robberies, attributing this to the “substantial efforts” of the newly deployed forces across the metropolis.
“You may truly deliver regulation and order to communities,” Vance mentioned, “you’ve simply received to have the political willpower to do it.”
Vance additionally recounted a previous go to to Union Station, the place he mentioned he and his household had been “screamed at by violent vagrants,” contrasting it with the administration’s present method to make it a spot “the place individuals can stroll round safely.”
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“I do know that we’ve traded now some violent loopy people who find themselves screaming at children, with just a few loopy liberals who’re screaming on the Vice President,” Vance added, referring to the protesters exterior.
He additional asserted that D.C. has a better crime fee than Trinidad and Tobago, which the State Division issued a Stage 3 journey advisory for in Could because of “severe dangers from crime” and “heightened dangers of terrorism and kidnapping.”
