KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump es­ca­lat­ed pres­sure on Venezuela by an­nounc­ing a ban on sanc­tioned oil tankers en­ter­ing and leav­ing the South Amer­i­can na­tion, some Venezue­lan mi­grants in T&T say they re­main large­ly un­fazed.

Sev­er­al Venezue­lans who spoke with Guardian Me­dia said they were ei­ther un­aware of the an­nounce­ment or viewed it as an­oth­er round of rhetoric aimed at the Nicolás Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In a post on his Truth So­cial ac­count, Trump claimed Venezuela was “com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by the largest ar­ma­da ever as­sem­bled in South Amer­i­can his­to­ry,” warn­ing that the show of force would con­tin­ue to ex­pand un­til the coun­try re­turned oil, land and oth­er as­sets he al­leged were stolen from the Unit­ed States.

“The il­le­git­i­mate Maduro regime is us­ing oil from these stolen oil fields to fi­nance them­selves, drug ter­ror­ism, hu­man traf­fick­ing, mur­der and kid­nap­ping. For the theft of our as­sets and many oth­er rea­sons, in­clud­ing ter­ror­ism, drug smug­gling and hu­man traf­fick­ing, the Venezue­lan regime has been des­ig­nat­ed a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“There­fore, to­day, I am or­der­ing a to­tal and com­plete block­age of all sanc­tioned oil tankers go­ing in­to, and out of, Venezuela,” Trump wrote.

He al­so claimed that il­le­gal im­mi­grants and crim­i­nals sent to the US dur­ing what he de­scribed as the “weak and in­ept Biden Ad­min­is­tra­tion” were be­ing re­turned to Venezuela at a rapid pace.

De­spite the rhetoric, Vanes­sa Adams, who has lived in T&T for more than eight years, said rel­a­tives in Venezuela re­port lit­tle fear or dis­rup­tion, adding that dai­ly life con­tin­ues large­ly un­changed.

“Peo­ple are not re­al­ly tak­ing it se­ri­ous­ly. It does not look like they are un­der threat or scared. The news says one thing, but the re­al­i­ty is dif­fer­ent. What we are hear­ing from friends and fam­i­ly is dif­fer­ent from what the news is say­ing, so I do not know what to be­lieve,” Adams said.

Lawrence Adams, a Trinida­di­an with dual cit­i­zen­ship, said Venezuela con­tin­ues to op­er­ate un­der a dic­ta­tor­ship, mak­ing a sud­den mass ex­o­dus un­like­ly even amid re­ports of a naval block­ade. While many cit­i­zens want to leave, he said, most lack the re­sources and have grown ac­cus­tomed to hard­ship.

“Peo­ple are just ac­cus­tomed to liv­ing like that. If they have prob­lems with elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter, they just make light of it. Those who want change and have busi­ness­es might mi­grate to an­oth­er coun­try, but the oth­ers would stay. Some who are des­per­ate will mi­grate il­le­gal­ly,” Lawrence said.

He added that the re­port­ed oil tanker block­ade, com­bined with long­stand­ing sanc­tions, means lit­tle new rev­enue is en­ter­ing the coun­try. As a re­sult, many Venezue­lans sur­vive on lim­it­ed in­ter­nal re­sources and sup­port from al­lies such as Rus­sia.

An­oth­er mi­grant, Yessi­ca Mar­quez, said the core is­sue is Trump’s in­ter­est in Venezuela’s oil. She said many Venezue­lans feel anger, be­liev­ing the US Pres­i­dent is ex­ploit­ing the coun­try’s cri­sis to claim re­sources that do not be­long to him.

“It should be clar­i­fied that years ago, Venezuela did not have its own oil re­fin­ery, and the Unit­ed States was the one that re­fined our oil. Per­haps he is re­fer­ring to oil debts from that time, but we do not know for sure, since those are in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal is­sues,” Mar­quez said.

Mar­quez said mi­gra­tion will con­tin­ue as long as Maduro’s gov­ern­ment re­mains in pow­er, dri­ven less by pol­i­tics than by eco­nom­ic col­lapse. She said the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to de­ny re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, in­stead blam­ing US sanc­tions for the coun­try’s de­cline.

For Jan Novia, watch­ing events un­fold from abroad stirs an­guish and cau­tious hope. She said many Venezue­lans long for an end to cor­rup­tion and a chance to re­build their coun­try.

“There are so many ques­tions about what will hap­pen with the pres­ence of the Unit­ed States in Venezuela, and it brings many con­flict­ing feel­ings, es­pe­cial­ly since we have fam­i­ly still liv­ing there. Just as I feel this way, many oth­er Venezue­lans feel the same.

“Of course, there will al­so be peo­ple who do not sup­port Trump’s gov­ern­ment, but my wish is that af­ter 25 years of cor­rup­tion and de­ceit, Venezuela can re­turn to what it once was, or even be­come bet­ter, so that all of us who are abroad can go back home, re­unite with our fam­i­lies, and work to im­prove our coun­try,” Novia said.