While no one could pre­dict the out­come of the Unit­ed States pres­i­den­tial elec­tion yes­ter­day with cer­tain­ty, some ex­perts in the en­er­gy sec­tor say T&T could be poised for change as it re­lates to our re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela.

One se­nior source in the en­er­gy sec­tor said some of the is­sues aris­ing from the US elec­tion in­clud­ed pos­si­ble tar­iffs on T&T ex­ports if for­mer US pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump won.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there could be changes to the Venezuela sanc­tions regime and im­pli­ca­tions for in­vest­ment in de­car­bon­i­sa­tion.

They said a sec­ond Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion could al­so mean the US rolling back its cli­mate change tar­gets.

The In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act sub­si­dies could al­so be im­pact­ed, which has led to a lot of in­vest­ment cap­i­tal go­ing to the US over the past three years.

They said there could al­so be im­pli­ca­tions for com­mod­i­ty prices, though it was un­clear what they could be.

How­ev­er, un­der a new Har­ris ad­min­is­tra­tion, there were promis­es of cli­mate fi­nance for the Caribbean.

The same may not oc­cur un­der a Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Prof An­tho­ny Bryan said gas and mi­gra­tion were two ma­jor fac­tors that could im­pact T&T un­der a Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Prof Bryan said, “I tend to think that en­er­gy will be the im­por­tant fac­tor. Much de­pends on the sur­vival of the Maduro regime. Cer­tain­ly, giv­en the num­ber of con­tracts that we have signed, I don’t think that ei­ther a Ka­mala gov­ern­ment or a Trump gov­ern­ment is go­ing to af­fect that in any se­ri­ous way. The ques­tion of whether to go ahead with oil ex­plo­ration and the pipeline, etc? That is up to OFAC which is an agency of the US Gov­ern­ment. It’s not im­mune to po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, but it’s cer­tain­ly a law un­to it­self. So far, they have weighed in very pos­i­tive with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“What is go­ing to be the pol­i­cy of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to­wards En­er­gy, to­wards Venezuela, to­wards Latin Amer­i­ca in gen­er­al? He’s been ter­ri­bly out­spo­ken about mi­grants. He wants to send about 11M peo­ple back. Well, this will im­pact Trinidad be­cause there are a lot of peo­ple from Trinidad who may be termed “il­le­gal”, and they will be sent back to Trinidad. The im­pact on Trinidad of an added pop­u­la­tion can be dra­mat­ic. One doesn’t quite know what his for­eign pol­i­cy can be. We pret­ty much know what Ka­mala’s will be. She has out­lined it in great de­tail.”

He said those who would be ad­vis­ing Trump on for­eign pol­i­cy were ex­trem­ists.

—KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER