This week’s vis­it by Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley to Venezuela should give the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment cause to re­flect on the state of its own re­la­tion­ship with our clos­est South Amer­i­can neigh­bour.

Dur­ing her vis­it to Cara­cas, Mot­t­ley met Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez and signed agree­ments cov­er­ing en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, fish­eries, tourism, ed­u­ca­tion and trans­porta­tion. The trip fol­lowed Ro­dríguez’s April vis­it to Bar­ba­dos, where dis­cus­sions be­gan on co­op­er­a­tion in en­er­gy, food pro­duc­tion and tourism. This week, both coun­tries moved fur­ther by com­mit­ting to deep­er trade and eco­nom­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion.

While Bar­ba­dos strength­ens ties with Cara­cas, T&T ap­pears to be mak­ing lit­tle progress in a re­la­tion­ship that is crit­i­cal to our eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

Over the past year, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have of­fered op­ti­mistic as­sess­ments of ef­forts to de­vel­op cross-bor­der en­er­gy re­sources with our neigh­bours. Last Oc­to­ber, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie de­clared the Drag­on gas project “alive” af­ter the coun­try se­cured a lim­it­ed li­cence from the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) to con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela.

In April, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion would trav­el to Cara­cas “short­ly” to se­cure T&T’s “just share” of cross-bor­der oil and gas re­sources.

Months lat­er, how­ev­er, the del­e­ga­tion has yet to ma­te­ri­alise, and there has been lit­tle vis­i­ble move­ment on ne­go­ti­a­tions. This de­lay is con­cern­ing giv­en the im­por­tance of these re­sources to T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor and wider econ­o­my.

The Drag­on gas field is es­ti­mat­ed to con­tain about 4.2 tril­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas, while the Man­akin-Cocuina field holds at least an­oth­er tril­lion cu­bic feet. Ac­cess­ing these re­serves could help off­set de­clin­ing do­mes­tic gas pro­duc­tion, sup­port LNG ex­ports and gen­er­ate much-need­ed for­eign ex­change.

The is­sue is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by geopol­i­tics. Trinidad and To­ba­go has had to bal­ance its eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests with Unit­ed States sanc­tions on Venezuela. A ma­jor set­back oc­curred in 2025 when OFAC re­voked the spe­cial li­cences need­ed to de­vel­op the Drag­on and Man­akin-Cocuina projects.

There was re­newed hope in April 2026 when OFAC guid­ance in­di­cat­ed that non-US com­pa­nies could pur­sue Venezue­lan gas projects un­der gen­er­al li­cences with­out au­to­mat­i­cal­ly trig­ger­ing sanc­tions. While this po­ten­tial­ly re­opened a path­way for the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and its part­ners, reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval alone is in­suf­fi­cient. Mean­ing­ful progress re­quires a func­tion­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ship with Cara­cas.

T&T can­not af­ford to re­main on the side­lines while re­gion­al neigh­bours ac­tive­ly pur­sue op­por­tu­ni­ties that could ben­e­fit their economies.

The Gov­ern­ment, there­fore, should ho­n­our its com­mit­ment to dis­patch a del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas and en­gage di­rect­ly with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties. At the same time, the per­sona non gra­ta des­ig­na­tion im­posed on our Prime Min­is­ter should be ad­dressed through con­struc­tive diplo­ma­cy.

Re­pair­ing re­la­tions with Venezuela is not mere­ly a for­eign pol­i­cy ob­jec­tive. It is an eco­nom­ic im­per­a­tive. If T&T hopes to se­cure its en­er­gy fu­ture, im­prove for­eign ex­change earn­ings and stim­u­late growth, re­build­ing this re­la­tion­ship must be­come a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.