Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio as­sured Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of Wash­ing­ton’s con­tin­ued sup­port for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Drag­on gas project, con­firm­ing that the U.S. will work to en­sure the pro­pos­al aligns with the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cence while lim­it­ing ben­e­fits to the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion in Venezuela.

The two lead­ers met to­day to re­view bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, with en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty high on the agen­da.

Sec­re­tary Ru­bio ac­knowl­edged the sig­nif­i­cance of the Drag­on gas plan to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty, not­ing that U.S. sup­port will in­clude steps to safe­guard the project’s im­ple­men­ta­tion.

A state­ment from the U.S. State De­part­ment said Sec­re­tary Ru­bio al­so com­mend­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ac­tions to counter transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions and re­duce the flow of il­lic­it nar­cotics and firearms through the re­gion.

The U.S. Sec­re­tary of State em­pha­sised that deep­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries will be crit­i­cal to dis­man­tling nar­co­traf­fick­ing net­works and safe­guard­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The talks al­so ex­tend­ed to the po­lit­i­cal and hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Haiti.

PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Sec­re­tary Ru­bio dis­cussed on­go­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts to re­store sta­bil­i­ty, in­clud­ing sup­port for the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion es­tab­lish­ing a UN Sup­port Of­fice for Haiti and a Gang Sup­pres­sion Force.

“The Sec­re­tary em­pha­sised that deep­en­ing U.S.-Trinidad and To­ba­go co­op­er­a­tion will be crit­i­cal to dis­rupt­ing nar­co­traf­fick­ing net­works, strength­en­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and safe­guard­ing our re­gion,” the state­ment read.