Venezuela suspends gas deal with T&T amid rising regional tension

Venezuela has suspended all energy agreements with Trinidad and Tobago just one day after a US warship docked on the island amid tension between Washington and Caracas.

In a television appearance on Monday evening, president of the Spanish-speaking South American country, Nicolás Maduro, said his government was “suspending all energy co-operation with Trinidad and Tobago.”

He said the decision was taken in response to Trinidad’s “adherence to a US aggression plan”.

He accused Trinidad’s Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, of transforming her country “into an aircraft carrier of the American empire against Venezuela”.

Persad-Bissessar has pushed back and defiantly declared that Trinidad does not need Venezuelan gas, and never did.

“Our future does not depend on Venezuela and never has,” she told the Trinidad Newsday via WhatsApp. “We have our plans and projects to grow our economy both within the energy and non-energy sectors.”

She said unlike the previous government, her administration has not placed all its eggs in one basket.

“The last PNM government mistakenly placed all their hopes in the Dragon project – we have not done so,” Persad-Bissessar stated. “Therefore, we are not susceptible to any blackmail from the Venezuelans for political support. We continue to maintain peaceful relations with the Venezuelan people.”

The two countries first agreed to jointly drill for gas in 2018 but the Dragon Project, as it is called, has been long delayed and complicated by US sanctions on Venezuela.

Just last month US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that while the US supports the project, it wants to ensure it will not provide significant benefit to Maduro’s government.

On Sunday, the USS Gravely, a destroyer fitted with guided missiles, arrived in Trinidad to conduct joint exercises with Trinidad’s navy.

Authorities in Venezuela described the move as a provocation.