Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­knowl­edged the tweet by US Sen­a­tor Mar­co Ru­bio could af­fect the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, Venezuela and the Drag­on Gas deal. 

Ru­bio’s tweet said, "To­day, pur­suant to @PO­TUS di­rec­tive, I am pro­vid­ing for­eign pol­i­cy guid­ance to ter­mi­nate all Biden-era oil and gas li­cens­es that have shame­ful­ly bankrolled the il­le­git­i­mate Maduro regime."

Young said, " We con­tin­ue to work every an­gle we can. It is un­der­stood by many lev­els how im­por­tant this deal, let's use the Drag­on Deal as the ex­am­ple, be­cause that's what every­one seems to be fo­cused on, and our OFAC li­cence, et cetera, how im­por­tant that is, not on­ly for the en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but al­so the sta­bil­i­ty of the re­gion, CARI­COM, as well as South Amer­i­ca, and al­so the con­ver­sa­tions we've con­sis­tent­ly had with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, how it al­so af­fects the geopol­i­tics, not on­ly of the re­gion, but al­so of our way as Eu­rope, as well as some oth­er en­ti­ties."

He was speak­ing at the Post Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence on Thurs­day.

Young said the gov­ern­ment is en­gaged with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to en­sure the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Drag­on Gas deal, which is im­por­tant for the coun­try’s en­er­gy strat­e­gy.

He said, “We are very aware of how im­por­tant it is and who the de­ci­sion-mak­ers are.”

Young al­so com­ment­ed on the op­po­si­tion’s con­stant crit­i­cism of Venezuela’s lead­er­ship. He said that at­tacks on Pres­i­dent Maduro, who con­trols the world’s largest oil re­serves, could af­fect diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions. 

"I can tell you, even on pre­vi­ous trips, pre­vi­ous con­ver­sa­tions that were had, there al­ways was a lev­el of con­cern," Young said. "Be­cause when you stood up in par­lia­ment every week and you heard the throw­ing of in­sults at a world leader, be­cause at the end of the day, Pres­i­dent Maduro is a leader. He sits on the largest oil re­serves in the world. And you have peo­ple on the oth­er side, the UNC op­po­si­tion at­tack­ing re­lent­less­ly and say­ing, what I saw yes­ter­day, some of that type of lan­guage, that will nev­er go down well. "

Young said Trinidad and To­ba­go would con­tin­ue to work to man­age its re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela and en­sure the con­clu­sion of the Drag­on deal.