Trinidad and To­ba­go is in the un­en­vi­able po­si­tion of be­ing a close neigh­bour of Venezuela while op­er­at­ing in the geopo­lit­i­cal space that the Unit­ed States has long claimed as its own. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the last 25 years be­cause of po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic ten­sions. The de­te­ri­o­ra­tion can be traced to Venezuela's ide­o­log­i­cal left­ward-lean­ing stance shift un­der Hugo Chavez and its as­so­ci­a­tion with Cu­ba and Nicaragua, and then Rus­sia, Iran, and Chi­na.

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Venezuela and the US de­gen­er­at­ed af­ter the 2002 at­tempt­ed coup, which briefly re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of Chavez. The Unit­ed States was sus­pect­ed of be­ing com­plic­it in the coup at­tempt or at least of be­ing tac­it­ly in sup­port of the ac­tion, thus poi­son­ing the re­la­tion­ship. It is not well known that the T&T Gov­ern­ment sup­plied Venezuela with fu­el when re­quest­ed to do so dur­ing the coup at­tempt. It is un­like­ly that the US knew of this ac­tion be­fore­hand. It in­di­cates the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions that an ad­min­is­tra­tion must take in pur­suit of its le­git­i­mate self-in­ter­est.

Pub­lic po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing and eco­nom­ic self-in­ter­est of­ten con­flict. For ex­am­ple, de­spite the hos­tile po­lit­i­cal rhetoric be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, oil re­mains a vi­tal link be­tween the two coun­tries. The US con­tin­ues to im­port Venezue­lan crude oil, which is need­ed for blend­ing pur­pos­es by US re­fin­ers. This ex­plains why OFAC li­cences have been grant­ed to US oil com­pa­nies to con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions in Venezuela de­spite the sanc­tions.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Venezuela’s state-owned oil com­pa­ny, PDVSA, op­er­at­ed re­fin­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion as­sets in the US through its sub­sidiary Cit­go Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion. Cit­go owned and op­er­at­ed re­finer­ies and thou­sands of gas sta­tions across the US un­til the im­pact of US sanc­tions in 2019. In 2024, PDVSA’s shares in Cit­go were sold in a US court-or­dered auc­tion to pay for Venezuela’s de­fault­ed debt oblig­a­tions.

The de­ploy­ment of a US naval task force to the Caribbean has com­pli­cat­ed this coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy op­tions. The de­struc­tion of three boats and the killing of their oc­cu­pants by US forces has added to the com­plex­i­ty. The US’s con­cerns about hu­man rights and democ­ra­cy in Venezuela are con­flict­ed by its ac­tions. The US has dis­closed no specifics. In whose wa­ters were these ac­tions car­ried out? The ac­tion is doubt­ful un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, which has rules re­gard­ing when one state can use force against an­oth­er state’s ves­sels. These ac­tions against al­leged “drug traf­fick­ers” do not fit with­in the rules of law en­force­ment and en­gage­ment.

No ev­i­dence has been pro­vid­ed that the ves­sels were car­ry­ing drugs, ex­cept by vague ref­er­ence to

“in­tel­li­gence”. Were less lethal op­tions used, like warn­ings is­sued to the crew or at­tempts to in­ter­cept rather than de­stroy? Us­ing lethal force on sus­pect­ed drug-smug­gling ves­sels could be­come nor­malised, in­creas­ing the risk that it might be mis­used. What if the Venezue­lan Guardia Na­cional were to em­ploy a sim­i­lar ap­proach against this coun­try’s fish­ing boats that may have strayed in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters?

There are many rea­sons for main­tain­ing a good re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela and the Unit­ed States with­out de­clar­ing sup­port for ei­ther par­ty or its ac­tions. The first is com­mon sense. Small states must steer an in­tel­li­gent mid­dle ground. The sec­ond is that we have strate­gic in­ter­ests in shared en­er­gy fields. The third is that con­struc­tive en­gage­ment al­lows T&T to play a bal­anc­ing role to avoid be­ing caught in great pow­er ri­val­ries. And fi­nal­ly, there is the les­son of Qatar.