On his re­cent vis­it to our shores as part of his mul­ti-na­tion tour, In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di spoke of the im­por­tance of the “Glob­al South,” a ref­er­ence to BRICS, an in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic fo­rum of which In­dia is a found­ing mem­ber. Af­ter the BRICS sum­mit was held in Rio de Janeiro this Ju­ly, the lead­ers of these grow­ing economies joint­ly de­clared their “se­ri­ous con­cerns about the rise of uni­lat­er­al tar­iff and non-tar­iff mea­sures.”

Al­though un­named, that was cer­tain­ly a ref­er­ence to US Pres­i­dent Trump’s ex­ec­u­tive or­der sign­ing mark­er pen. That very pen­man­ship seems to have helped thaw frosty re­la­tions be­tween BRICS mem­bers In­dia and Chi­na with Pres­i­dent Mo­di’s vis­it to Bei­jing last week­end. The two Asian neigh­bours have been stand­off­ish since bor­der skir­mish­es in 2020. With In­dia sched­uled to sup­plant Ger­many as the world’s third-largest econ­o­my by 2027, Pres­i­dent Mo­di has repri­ori­tised busi­ness.

Rus­sia and Iran (al­so BRICS mem­bers) have a par­tic­u­lar­ly close re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela, at whose doorstep three US Navy war­ships are now parked. More are on their way in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s war on in­ter­na­tion­al drug car­tels.

The US De­part­ments of Jus­tice and State dou­bled their boun­ty to US$50 mil­lion for “one of the largest nar­co-traf­fick­ers in the world,” Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. The US gov­ern­ment must have cred­i­ble ev­i­dence to so mo­bilise and in­cen­tivise.

The Maduro gov­ern­ment would have of­fered BRICS mem­bers pri­or­i­ty ac­cess to its hy­dro­car­bon projects in lob­by­ing for Venezuela’s en­try in­to their club. That failed. Still, G7 mem­ber Unit­ed States looks set to get some mul­ti-task­ing done by go­ing af­ter Maduro. Amer­i­ca first, the “Glob­al North” sec­ond?

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “Trinidad and To­ba­go first” state­ment takes a cue from Pres­i­dent Trump, as she es­chewed the “cir­cling-the-wag­ons” strat­e­gy of con­sult­ing Cari­com or even the pro-Maduro AL­BA sig­na­to­ries. Her stance in de­fence of “Cari­com neigh­bour Guyana” can­not be fault­ed, as the Maduro gov­ern­ment has flirt­ed just this year with “an­nex­ing” Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo à la Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Putin in Ukraine. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s grant­i­ng of ac­cess to our sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry to the US armed forces is de­pen­dent on a Venezue­lan in­va­sion of Guyana. I find that un­like­ly at this point. Re­gard­less, stronger re­la­tions with both Guyana and the US are en­cour­aged.

Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s meet­ing with Grena­di­an PM Dick­on Mitchell to dis­cuss an en­er­gy part­ner­ship be­tween our two coun­tries is a dis­play of healthy re­la­tions with an­oth­er Cari­com col­league. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance at and sup­port of fu­ture Cari­com ini­tia­tives will be more in­struc­tive. What if the US Navy ves­sels leave and Maduro stays? Will we face in­creased Venezue­lan vex­a­tion af­ter? Will Cari­com mem­bers give us the cold shoul­der for go­ing it alone? We may need to en­gage in re­me­di­al diplo­ma­cy. Will For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sobers be up to such tasks?

Con­verse­ly, if the “Maduro Regime” is re­moved, will there be free and fair elec­tions in Venezuela? Will the new gov­ern­ment es­cape the “nar­co-regime” stig­ma? Will they be ac­cused of be­ing a pup­pet gov­ern­ment in­stalled by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion? Putting on a “Trin­ba­go First” hat, will we be able to ac­cess Drag­on Gas and oth­er cross-bor­der fields? Sure­ly, the De­part­ment of Jus­tice will grant us the OFAC li­cences, if not re­move those re­quire­ments, com­plete­ly. Per­haps our PM cal­cu­lat­ed these pos­si­bil­i­ties and chose the course of ac­tion with the most favourable “Trin­ba­go First” out­comes. On­ly time will tell if the call held fore­sight.

As pa­tri­ot­ic Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, we should ad­vise and sup­port our Gov­ern­ment, as best as we can.

I don’t know if for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is be­ing pa­tri­ot­ic when he seems to gloat over a leaked Au­gust 7th Cab­i­net note en­ti­tled: “Ap­proval for the trans­fer of funds held in es­crow for 16 Gov­ern­ment-guar­an­teed loans to the Trea­sury to as­sist Gov­ern­ment with Fund­ing for the re­main­ing months of fis­cal year 2025.” He claims that “the Gov­ern­ment is broke!” MP Im­bert was our Fi­nance min­is­ter as late as five months ago. He and his for­mer gov­ern­ment can­not ex­tri­cate them­selves from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the poor state of our econ­o­my. I dare him to make any rec­om­men­da­tions oth­er than “Call the elec­tion now!”

Gov­ern­ment is a con­tin­u­um. Each par­ty is quick to take cred­it for the coun­try’s ad­vance­ments while blam­ing the oth­er/s for any fail­ures. Who do we blame for our na­tion be­ing the poster child for “Dutch dis­ease”? Se­ri­ous di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion has nev­er been pur­sued. In 1980, then Ja­maican PM Michael Man­ley re­port­ed “...Trinidad is go­ing to be broke in three years…Trinidad has oil, but they are al­low­ing the oil to flow like a dose of salts through the coun­try.”

If the “broke” is back, whose fault is it? More im­por­tant­ly, when are we go­ing to start earn­ing se­ri­ous rev­enue from sources oth­er than our 120-year-old hy­dro­car­bon gold­en goose?

Even as rev­enue sourc­ing seems prob­lem­at­ic, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said that her Gov­ern­ment will fill “thou­sands of va­can­cies in the pub­lic ser­vice on a phased ba­sis.” NATUC and JTUM are pleased with this di­rec­tion to­wards em­ploy­ment sta­bil­i­ty, while the ECA is con­cerned about the fi­nanc­ing of the pub­lic sec­tor wage bill. Per­haps pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty will rise with the wages.

Even though we need to watch every dol­lar spent, why didn’t NGC close the deal on the Banyan Archives pur­chase in 2022? Trin­bag­on­ian her­itage has been prop­er­ly sold to Bar­ba­dos. An­oth­er lost op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­mote our cul­tur­al & her­itage tourism?

Hap­py In­de­pen­dence Day, T&T!