Yes­ter­day’s vis­it to Cara­cas by a del­e­ga­tion led by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, sig­nals the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a much-an­tic­i­pat­ed im­prove­ment in re­la­tions be­tween this coun­try and its clos­est neigh­bour.

Ties be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sharply fol­low­ing re­marks made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2025, af­ter a US ki­net­ic strike against a mar­itime ves­sel in the south­ern Caribbean. Those com­ments sparked diplo­mat­ic ten­sions that con­tin­ued to wors­en over the fol­low­ing weeks and months.

The re­la­tion­ship reached its low­est point on Oc­to­ber 28, 2025, when Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly unan­i­mous­ly de­clared the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter per­sona non gra­ta, ef­fec­tive­ly bar­ring her from en­ter­ing the coun­try.

If Mr Sobers’ mis­sion is in­tend­ed to pave the way for a fu­ture meet­ing be­tween Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, then a log­i­cal first step would be for Venezuela’s leg­is­la­ture to re­scind that des­ig­na­tion. Such a move would send a pow­er­ful sig­nal that both na­tions are pre­pared to re­store nor­mal diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and pur­sue a more con­struc­tive part­ner­ship.

The tim­ing is ap­pro­pri­ate. T&T and Venezuela now find them­selves in a sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment than they did a year ago. Diplo­mat­ic nor­mal­i­sa­tion would al­low both coun­tries to fo­cus on ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est, par­tic­u­lar­ly en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion.

The most im­por­tant of these is­sues is ac­cess to Venezuela’s vast nat­ur­al gas re­serves. For T&T, gas from near-bor­der and cross-bor­der fields could help sup­ply liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas fa­cil­i­ties in Point Fortin and petro­chem­i­cal plants at Point Lisas and La Brea. For Venezuela, such arrange­ments would pro­vide a re­li­able and pre­dictable source of rev­enue while al­low­ing the coun­try to mon­e­tise re­sources that might oth­er­wise re­main un­de­vel­oped.

Agree­ments in­volv­ing the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny could there­fore prove ben­e­fi­cial to both sides, strength­en­ing eco­nom­ic ties while sup­port­ing en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and down­stream in­dus­tries.

An­oth­er is­sue wor­thy of dis­cus­sion at any fu­ture lead­ers’ sum­mit is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Venezue­lan crude be­ing re­fined at the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. Ex­pand­ed co­op­er­a­tion in both oil and gas could cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment, em­ploy­ment and eco­nom­ic growth.

Pol­i­cy­mak­ers in Port-of-Spain should al­so close­ly mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela’s en­er­gy sec­tor. Re­cent an­nounce­ments re­gard­ing new in­ter­na­tion­al in­volve­ment in Venezue­lan oil pro­duc­tion un­der­score the coun­try’s con­tin­u­ing im­por­tance as one of the re­gion’s ma­jor en­er­gy play­ers.

Against this back­drop, T&T should ex­plore po­si­tion­ing it­self as a re­gion­al hub for the pro­cess­ing of Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas and crude oil. A com­pre­hen­sive bi­lat­er­al trade and in­vest­ment agree­ment could es­tab­lish clear rules gov­ern­ing trade, in­vest­ment, cap­i­tal and labour flows be­tween the two coun­tries while pro­vid­ing greater cer­tain­ty for in­vestors.

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley has al­ready demon­strat­ed the val­ue of en­gage­ment with Cara­cas through a se­ries of high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic ex­changes. Trinidad and To­ba­go, giv­en its prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela and shared en­er­gy in­ter­ests, has even greater in­cen­tives to strength­en this re­la­tion­ship.

If man­aged care­ful­ly, yes­ter­day’s vis­it by Mr Sobers could mark the be­gin­ning of a new chap­ter in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions, one ca­pa­ble of de­liv­er­ing sub­stan­tial eco­nom­ic and strate­gic ben­e­fits to both coun­tries.