Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has long been a thorn in Wash­ing­ton’s side. Ac­cu­sa­tions of nar­co-ter­ror­ism, rigged elec­tions, and hu­man rights abus­es have shaped the US nar­ra­tive. Eco­nom­ic sanc­tions, diplo­mat­ic iso­la­tion, and even a boun­ty on Maduro’s head have thus far failed to bring Venezuela to its knees.

Some ques­tion why Venezuela is sin­gled out—af­ter all, oth­er coun­tries have ques­tion­able records too. But the oil and gas be­neath its soil are like­ly ma­jor mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tors.

Top­pling Maduro would al­so score po­lit­i­cal points in Flori­da, a key state for US mid-term elec­tions. Many Venezue­lan ex­iles liv­ing there would wel­come regime change. A friend­ly right-wing gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas could curb Chi­nese in­flu­ence in South Amer­i­ca and dis­rupt a po­ten­tial Sino-Russ­ian-Venezue­lan al­liance. Venezuela’s col­lapse would al­so weak­en Cu­ba—per­haps the next tar­get. Trump had pledged to com­bat drug car­tels as part of his broad­er an­ti-drug strat­e­gy.

Back on Oc­to­ber 21, 2022, I wrote about the open­ing of a US­AID of­fice in T&T: “Amer­i­ca has spent over a tril­lion dol­lars since it launched its drug pol­i­cy in 1971, and de­spite the DEA’s ef­forts, drug use in the US is in­creas­ing. Our own drug trade—with its mur­ders, guns, and gangs—has made our is­land a liv­ing hell. We can­not progress as a na­tion with crime as an al­ba­tross around our necks. This is where our na­tions can ben­e­fit each oth­er. We need to send an SOS to the USA. If heed­ed, it will ben­e­fit both coun­tries.”

Well, that mo­ment may now be here.

On Tues­day, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio an­nounced that T&T had joined a re­gion­al group of Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries work­ing to stem the flow of drugs in­to the Unit­ed States. This bloc in­cludes Ecuador, Paraguay, Guyana, Ar­genti­na, and now T&T.

I am no ide­al­ist. I know we can nev­er elim­i­nate crime or drugs en­tire­ly—and yes, we may even be pawns in a big­ger game. But we’ve all wit­nessed the dev­as­ta­tion drugs wreak on our youth and the vi­o­lence that plagues our com­mu­ni­ties. The ex­pen­sive Cari­com crime sym­po­sium host­ed in April 2023 of­fered lit­tle more than PR pho­to ops. We need some­thing more tan­gi­ble.

Crit­ics may ar­gue that align­ing with US for­eign mil­i­tary in­ter­ests un­der­mines our sov­er­eign­ty. But let’s be re­al­is­tic: the US can and will act with or with­out us. It may be pru­dent to align our­selves with them when the mo­ment de­mands. We des­per­ate­ly need for­eign aid and trade.

The cur­rent Gov­ern­ment must al­so do dam­age con­trol fol­low­ing re­marks by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who deroga­to­ri­ly re­ferred to the St Lu­cia Op­po­si­tion Leader as a “Trop­i­cal Trump,” and an­oth­er MP who dis­missed US in­flu­ence by say­ing, “What Trump could do we?”

Patrick Svitek, of The Wash­ing­ton Post, re­cent­ly not­ed, “A hall­mark of Trump’s sec­ond term has been ret­ri­bu­tion against his po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies… strip­ping se­cu­ri­ty clear­ances, with­hold­ing fed­er­al fund­ing, and or­der­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

These lo­cal politi­cians are lucky to still hold US visas. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar need­ed to dis­tance her­self from those re­marks.

While Cari­com is sup­posed to pro­mote re­gion­al co­he­sion, his­to­ry shows that self-in­ter­est of­ten trumps uni­ty. The West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion col­lapsed when Ja­maica and Trinidad with­drew, prompt­ing Dr Er­ic Williams to fa­mous­ly say, “One from ten leaves nought.”

In 1983, the US in­va­sion of Grena­da was backed by the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS), along with Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica. De­spite Cari­com’s ex­is­tence, the OECS signed a sep­a­rate MOU to co­op­er­ate on se­cu­ri­ty and na­tion­al emer­gen­cies—a bloc with­in a bloc. This al­lowed the US to use the RSS (Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem) as part of its in­va­sion plan.

His­to­ry shows that na­tion­al self-in­ter­est of­ten trumps re­gion­al loy­al­ty. For ex­am­ple, Caribbean na­tions have ex­it­ed or mod­i­fied agree­ments, signed in­ter­im trade deals with the EU, or pur­sued in­de­pen­dent eco­nom­ic strate­gies. Bar­ba­dos launched its com­pet­i­tive­ness pro­gramme; Ja­maica de­vel­oped its Glob­al Lo­gis­tics Ini­tia­tive.

Petro­Caribe, launched in 2005, faced scep­ti­cism from T&T and Bar­ba­dos.

In March 2019, five Caribbean lead­ers—Ba­hamas, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Haiti, Ja­maica, and St Lu­cia—met with Pres­i­dent Trump at Mar-a-La­go, seek­ing bi­lat­er­al in­vest­ment deals. No­tably, T&T was not in­vit­ed. At the time, our gov­ern­ment was seen as pro-Maduro. These five aligned with the Li­ma Group, de­clared Maduro’s sec­ond term il­le­git­i­mate, and recog­nised op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guaidó—ig­nor­ing the broad­er Cari­com po­si­tion.

In my col­umn on Sep­tem­ber 28, 2023, I cau­tioned that the US could re­verse its Venezuela pol­i­cy at any time, jeop­ar­dis­ing the Drag­on gas col­lab­o­ra­tion. While the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion may have act­ed with good in­ten­tions, the deal has stalled. The cur­rent Gov­ern­ment owes it to the peo­ple to rene­go­ti­ate in our na­tion­al in­ter­est.

As our Am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, right­ly said, “The rest of Cari­com must un­der­stand new re­al­i­ties.”