Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ques­tion­ing what Trinidad and To­ba­go ac­tu­al­ly achieved from For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ trip to Venezuela and why Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has still not met di­rect­ly with Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

Beck­les yes­ter­day said the Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain what tan­gi­ble gains have come from the vis­it, par­tic­u­lar­ly for this coun­try’s en­er­gy in­ter­ests, as it cel­e­brates what it has de­scribed as a “new era” in re­la­tions be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas.

She al­so ques­tioned why Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not been af­ford­ed the type of high-lev­el en­gage­ment oth­er Caribbean lead­ers have re­cent­ly had with Venezuela.

“Per­haps we must ask, how is it that Prime Min­is­ters in our re­gion can be wel­comed to Venezuela with red-car­pet diplo­mat­ic ho­n­ours, while our own Prime Min­is­ter re­mains per­sona non gra­ta in Venezuela?” Beck­les asked in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

Sobers trav­elled to Cara­cas on Thurs­day and held bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lan Min­is­ter of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Félix Plasen­cia at Casa Amar­il­la.

A joint state­ment fol­low­ing the talks de­scribed the en­gage­ment as the be­gin­ning of a new era be­tween the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries, ground­ed in mu­tu­al re­spect, un­der­stand­ing and good neigh­bourli­ness.

But Beck­les ar­gued that be­fore the Gov­ern­ment cel­e­brates the vis­it as a diplo­mat­ic break­through, it should tell the coun­try what was ac­tu­al­ly se­cured.

She al­so ac­cused the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion of try­ing to claim “hero sta­tus” for re­pair­ing a re­la­tion­ship that she said it dam­aged in the first place.

“This is a case of start­ing a fire, putting it out and then claim­ing hero sta­tus for ex­tin­guish­ing it,” Beck­les said.

“There is no need for the na­tion to cel­e­brate Sobers’ trip as some great diplo­mat­ic achieve­ment. It was he and his boss who in the first place burned the bridge that was more than wel­com­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go over the years.”

Beck­les point­ed to sev­er­al pre­vi­ous state­ments in­volv­ing Venezuela, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s May 2025 de­c­la­ra­tion that “Drag­on is dead” in re­la­tion to the Drag­on gas project and her sub­se­quent warn­ing that “lethal force” could be used against Venezue­lan ves­sels en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s wa­ters.

She al­so ref­er­enced con­tro­ver­sial re­marks by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der, about hav­ing Venezuela “nuked.”

“What this Gov­ern­ment calls a ‘new era’ with Venezuela is not a diplo­mat­ic tri­umph. It is an at­tempt to re­pair the dam­age caused by the reck­less bel­liger­ence and ir­re­spon­si­ble rhetoric of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and some mem­bers of her regime,” she said.

Beck­les posit­ed that the larg­er is­sue is what the ap­par­ent diplo­mat­ic re­set means for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic and en­er­gy prospects.

She point­ed to en­er­gy arrange­ments in­volv­ing multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies Shell and BP, some of which she said ex­tend for decades, and ques­tioned whether Trinidad and To­ba­go has been able to se­cure sim­i­lar ben­e­fits.

“With all this talk of a ‘new be­gin­ning’ and the fan­fare be­ing gen­er­at­ed by this UNC Gov­ern­ment, I want to know, where does this leave Trinidad and To­ba­go?” she asked.

Beck­les called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to make her­self avail­able to the me­dia and ex­plain “pre­cise­ly what ne­go­ti­a­tions, if any, are cur­rent­ly tak­ing place with Venezuela.”

She said the cen­tral ques­tion was whether the lat­est at­tempt to re­pair re­la­tions would re­sult in the restora­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pre­vi­ous arrange­ments with Venezuela or whether the coun­try would con­tin­ue to suf­fer the con­se­quences of the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in ties.

While say­ing she re­mained hope­ful that re­la­tions be­tween the two neigh­bours could deep­en again, Beck­les warned that the Op­po­si­tion would close­ly mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments.

“We do so be­cause of the volatil­i­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter and her demon­strat­ed in­cli­na­tion to­wards in­cen­di­ary and in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments, state­ments that can un­do decades of hard work in a mat­ter of sec­onds,” she said.

Beck­les said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty and long-term in­ter­ests must not be jeop­ar­dised by po­lit­i­cal rhetoric.

“The na­tion­al in­ter­est must al­ways come be­fore po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy,” she said.