The re­cent re­gion­al trav­el itin­er­ary of Venezuela’s act­ing pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez has tak­en her to Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos with cal­cu­lat­ed vis­i­bil­i­ty, but most strik­ing­ly, not to Trinidad and To­ba­go her coun­try’s clos­est neigh­bour.

As Ro­dríguez en­gages and charms Cari­com part­ners, her con­spic­u­ous avoid­ance of Port-of-Spain sig­nals more than a sched­ul­ing gap, but rather re­flects a de­lib­er­ate diplo­mat­ic freeze.

The roots of this chill are well known.

The Oc­to­ber 2025 de­c­la­ra­tion by Venezuela of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as “per­sona non gra­ta” in Cara­cas, af­ter an ex­plo­sive pe­ri­od of ver­bal ex­changes, marked a de­ci­sive rup­ture in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

That break­down, which un­fold­ed amid height­ened geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ in­ter­ven­tion in Venezuela, nat­u­ral­ly car­ries con­se­quences for T&T, giv­en our di­rect stake in Venezue­lan gas re­serves.

For years, the promise of mon­etis­ing cross-bor­der fields such as Drag­on and Lo­ran-Man­a­tee has un­der­pinned hopes for a sus­tained en­er­gy sec­tor.

With do­mes­tic re­serves in de­cline, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and the wider down­stream in­dus­try re­main heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on Venezue­lan co­op­er­a­tion.

There­fore, any fur­ther widen­ing of the diplo­mat­ic gap threat­ens not just di­a­logue, but the very fea­si­bil­i­ty of time­ly and pro­duc­tive en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions.

So far, the Prime Min­is­ter has in­sist­ed she is “not con­cerned” with Ro­dríguez’s re­gion­al move­ments, fo­cus­ing in­stead on dis­patch­ing a del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas to se­cure “our just share” of these re­sources.

Yet a con­tra­dic­tion is emerg­ing.

While Port-of-Spain sig­nals readi­ness to en­gage at a tech­no­crat­ic lev­el, Cara­cas ap­pears un­in­ter­est­ed in rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing.

By by­pass­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, Venezuela may be in­di­cat­ing that leader-to-leader diplo­ma­cy - at least for now - is off the ta­ble, a po­si­tion that the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs must ur­gent­ly seek to mend.

Com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters fur­ther is the diplo­mat­ic fall­out from Ro­dríguez’s now-in­fa­mous wear­ing of a brooch de­pict­ing Venezuela’s claim to the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion - ter­ri­to­ry ad­min­is­tered by Guyana.

That de­fi­ant ac­tion has drawn sharp re­buke from George­town, with Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali warn­ing yes­ter­day that such sym­bol­ism risks nor­mal­is­ing Venezuela’s claim even as the mat­ter re­mains be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

This is not mere or­na­men­ta­tion but strate­gic sig­nalling.

By wear­ing the brooch dur­ing of­fi­cial vis­its, Ro­dríguez is ef­fec­tive­ly test­ing Cari­com’s diplo­mat­ic tol­er­ance - prob­ing whether eco­nom­ic en­gage­ment with Venezuela will out­weigh re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty with Guyana.

So, where does this leave Trinidad and To­ba­go?

If re­la­tions with our South Amer­i­can neigh­bour are to be sta­bilised, a de­lib­er­ate thaw­ing of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions will be re­quired.

In prac­ti­cal terms, two im­me­di­ate steps could help re­set the tone: the for­mal ap­point­ment of an am­bas­sador to Venezuela to en­sure con­sis­tent, high-lev­el en­gage­ment in Cara­cas, and the re­sump­tion of Caribbean Air­lines flights be­tween the two coun­tries.

These mea­sures should not be viewed as con­ces­sions, but as in­stru­ments of en­gage­ment - nec­es­sary tools in nav­i­gat­ing a com­plex and evolv­ing re­gion­al dy­nam­ic.

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the stakes are too high for in­er­tia.

The en­er­gy re­sources that lie be­neath the wa­ters sep­a­rat­ing our na­tions re­main crit­i­cal to our eco­nom­ic fu­ture, and re-en­gage­ment, how­ev­er care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed, is no longer op­tion­al but es­sen­tial.