Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The US De­part­ment of State has said it is “cer­tain­ly open to fur­ther con­ver­sa­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go” when Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken vis­its T&T next week, af­ter ques­tions were asked at a news con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton DC yes­ter­day, about T&T’s re­quest for an amend­ment to the terms of the Drag­on Field agree­ment with Venezuela.

Blinken is due here on Wednes­day, the last day of the 45th Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Heads of Gov­ern­ment Con­fer­ence which be­gins on Mon­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Caribbean Af­fairs and Haiti Bar­bara Fe­in­stein con­firmed that he will hold talks with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley while here.

Fe­in­stein was asked whether T&T’s re­quest for an amend­ment to the agree­ment with Venezuela would be part of Blinken’s dis­cus­sions.

“As the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has stat­ed pub­licly, we did is­sue – (the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol) OFAC is­sued a spe­cif­ic li­cense to the gov­ern­ment to al­low the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on off­shore nat­ur­al gas field lo­cat­ed in Venezue­lan mar­itime ter­ri­to­ry.

“We took that step to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s abil­i­ty to ac­cess ad­di­tion­al nat­ur­al gas re­sources and utilise ex­ist­ing on­shore in­fra­struc­ture to meet do­mes­tic de­mand, and to in­crease re­gion­al and glob­al ex­ports of LNG, am­mo­nia, urea, and oth­er gas-de­rived prod­ucts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of our com­mit­ment to as­sist the Caribbean re­gion with ac­cess to ad­di­tion­al en­er­gy sup­plies.

“And to that end, as a re­gion­al leader in LNG pro­duc­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go has com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing so­lu­tions to the re­gion as it seeks to boost its pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty. So we are cer­tain­ly open to fur­ther con­ver­sa­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go on this is­sue to see what can be done to im­prove en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion,” Fe­in­stein said.

She con­firmed, how­ev­er, that there are no sep­a­rate ses­sions at the Cari­com con­fer­ence, specif­i­cal­ly sched­uled to deal with Venezuela.

“I would say broad­ly...the Sec­re­tary does want to talk about shared pri­or­i­ties in the re­gion, in­clud­ing democ­ra­cy and sta­bil­i­ty, and cer­tain­ly Venezuela could come up in that con­text in terms of our push for free and fair elec­tions there and a peace­ful restora­tion of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process in Venezuela,” Fe­in­stein said.

PM, Young talk with VP Har­ris

T&T re­ceived a waiv­er from the Unit­ed States in Jan­u­ary this year, au­tho­ris­ing T&T and a group of com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA and An­glo-Dutch Shell, to re­vive the dor­mant Drag­on gas field project.

The field has the po­ten­tial to en­hance T&T’s gas pro­duc­tion and in­crease ex­ports to neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

How­ev­er, the au­tho­ri­sa­tion im­pos­es re­stric­tions on any cash pay­ments to the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela or its state-owned en­ti­ties.

Dr Row­ley and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young met with US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris in Wash­ing­ton last month, and speak­ing to Reuters on the side­lines of the 7th In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Sum­mit in Mi­a­mi, Young said T&T’s re­quest­ed changes per­tain to the fi­nan­cial terms but re­frained from pro­vid­ing fur­ther de­tails.

Fe­in­stein said Blinken’s meet­ing with Dr Row­ley would fo­cus on shared pri­or­i­ties of sup­port­ing strong de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions in the re­gion, ef­forts to en­hance en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and cli­mate re­silience - in­clud­ing through the US-Caribbean Part­ner­ship to Ad­dress the Cli­mate Cri­sis or PACC 2030 - and reaf­firm­ing the hemi­sphere’s re­gion­al and holis­tic ap­proach to ad­dress ir­reg­u­lar mi­gra­tion.

“Sec­re­tary Blinken will al­so dis­cuss ef­forts to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis and im­prove cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

Haiti al­so on US agen­da

While in T&T, Blinken will al­so meet with Hait­ian Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry to dis­cuss Haiti’s po­lit­i­cal, se­cu­ri­ty, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises.

“The Sec­re­tary will urge Prime Min­is­ter Hen­ry to work ur­gent­ly with Hait­ian stake­hold­ers to en­large the po­lit­i­cal con­sen­sus and fash­ion a po­lit­i­cal path for­ward that re­turns Haiti to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­der.”

Blinken will al­so en­gage Caribbean lead­ers on the mul­ti-di­men­sion­al cri­sis in Haiti and will meet with Do­mini­can Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, the in­com­ing chair of Cari­com, to dis­cuss “our strong part­ner­ship on re­gion­al mi­gra­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, and re­new­able en­er­gy.”

The State De­part­ment said that Blinken’s trip is meant to build on US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris’ vis­it to the Ba­hamas on June 8, where she en­gaged Cari­com lead­ers and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

“These en­gage­ments tes­ti­fy to the un­prece­dent­ed pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of the Caribbean re­gion un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion. Pres­i­dent Biden met with lead­ers of Cari­com and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in June 2022 at the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as. Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris has met with them in Los An­ge­les, Wash­ing­ton, DC, and in Nas­sau. Spe­cial Pres­i­den­tial Ad­vi­sor Dodd, Spe­cial En­voy (John) Ker­ry, USUN Am­bas­sador Thomas‑Green­field, and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for West­ern Hemi­sphere Af­fairs Bri­an Nichols have met with Caribbean lead­ers in the re­gion more than a dozen times,” Fe­in­stein said.

Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Pa­tri­cia Scot­land, Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea (South Ko­rea) Han Duck-soo, Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter of Chi­na Hua Chun­y­ing and Rwan­da’s Head of State Paul Kagame are al­so com­ing to T&T for the Cari­com con­fer­ence.

Blinken will trav­el to Guyana on Thurs­day for talks with Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali.