U.S. Vice President JD Vance used Trinidad and Tobago as an example of high crime while defending President Donald Trump’s security crackdown in Washington, D.C., during a visit to Union Station on Wednesday.
Vance was booed by protesters as he greeted National Guard troops alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. He said crime statistics in the city were “massively underreported” and described Washington as overrun by “drug addicts,” “vagrants,” and the “chronically homeless.” Protesters chanted “shame” and “we want the military out of our streets.”
“You hear these guys outside, they appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities, and they do the fact that DC a week ago had a higher murder rate than Trinidad and Tobago, which the United States State Department has said you shouldn’t visit because it’s unsafe. We ought to be able to enjoy great American cities. That’s what we’re trying to do in the Trump administration,” Vance said.
Local media reported that homicides in Washington, D.C., have decreased in 2025. Through August 11, 2025, police reported 99 homicides, compared with 112 in the same period of 2024. Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago recorded 235 murders by the same date in 2025, down from 400 in 2024. The island is, however, under a state of emergency.
The visit came just nine days after the Trump administration enforced a federal intervention to address crime in the nation’s capital. During their remarks, protests over the federal takeover of the city as well as the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict erupted in the background.
Vance said the visit, which took place inside Union Station’s Shake Shack restaurant, was intended to thank the National Guard and police for “actually keeping this place safe.”
The Vice President claimed that since the start of the federal takeover, Washington, D.C., has seen a 35% reduction in violent crime and an over 50% reduction in robberies, attributing this to the “substantial efforts” of the newly deployed forces around the city.
“You can actually bring law and order to communities,” Vance said, “you’ve just got to have the political willpower to do it.”
Vance also recounted a prior visit to Union Station, where he said he and his family were “screamed at by violent vagrants,” contrasting it with the administration’s current approach to make it a place “where people can walk around safely.”
“I know that we’ve traded now some violent crazy people who are screaming at kids, with a few crazy liberals who are screaming at the Vice President,” Vance added, referring to the protesters outside.
He further asserted that D.C. has a higher crime rate than Trinidad and Tobago, which the State Department issued a Level 3 travel advisory for in May due to “serious risks from crime” and “heightened risks of terrorism and kidnapping.”
