For­eign pol­i­cy in T&T has long been viewed as main­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al - fo­cused on speech­es and pho­to-ops, not strat­e­gy - but this is def­i­nite­ly not the case. 

In fact, the geopo­lit­i­cal map of the South­ern Caribbean is chang­ing rapid­ly, and un­less the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion recog­nis­es the scale of this shift, T&T risks los­ing its nat­ur­al ad­van­tage in a re­gion.

De­spite Wash­ing­ton’s cur­rent mil­i­tary dis­plays to tar­get traf­fick­ers, the South­ern Caribbean is shaped by much more than the old ‘war on drugs’.

This cor­ner of the re­gion is cur­rent­ly one of the most valu­able geopo­lit­i­cal zones in the Amer­i­c­as, not be­cause of what pass­es through it, but be­cause of what lies be­neath it — oil and gas re­serves that have placed Guyana, Suri­name, and Venezuela at the cen­tre of glob­al en­er­gy cal­cu­la­tions.

At the heart of this trans­for­ma­tion is the Drag­on gas field project for which T&T se­cured a 30-year deal from Venezuela some years ago to ex­plore and pro­duce nat­ur­al gas in part­ner­ship with Shell and PDVSA. The field, lo­cat­ed just 15 kilo­me­tres from T&T’s Hi­bis­cus plat­form, holds an es­ti­mat­ed 3.2 to 4.2 tril­lion cu­bic feet of gas. Once de­vel­oped, the gas will flow through a new sub­sea pipeline to Trinidad, feed­ing LNG and petro­chem­i­cal plants that have been op­er­at­ing be­low ca­pac­i­ty for years.

This was made pos­si­ble on­ly af­ter Wash­ing­ton grant­ed a spe­cial US Trea­sury (OFAC) waiv­er, first is­sued in 2023 and re­cent­ly ex­tend­ed, al­low­ing T&T and its part­ners to work with Venezuela de­spite on­go­ing sanc­tions. The de­ci­sion was not sim­ply about en­er­gy sup­ply; it was a strate­gic ges­ture. The Unit­ed States sees T&T as an im­por­tant play­er in a re­gion where en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty and geopol­i­tics now in­ter­sect.

Yet here at home, the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­pears dis­tract­ed — con­sumed by do­mes­tic pol­i­tics while fail­ing to ar­tic­u­late a clear for­eign pol­i­cy vi­sion. There is no co­her­ent frame­work link­ing en­er­gy diplo­ma­cy, re­gion­al trade, and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. En­gage­ment with Guyana and Suri­name re­mains lim­it­ed, and there has been lit­tle pub­lic dis­cus­sion about how Drag­on fits in­to a long-term na­tion­al or re­gion­al en­er­gy strat­e­gy.

This is a se­ri­ous over­sight. The Drag­on project po­si­tions T&T at the cen­tre of a po­ten­tial South­ern Caribbean en­er­gy cor­ri­dor, one that could in­te­grate gas pro­duc­tion from Venezuela, Guyana, and Suri­name util­is­ing this coun­try’s pro­cess­ing and ex­port fa­cil­i­ties. That lever­age gives Port-of-Spain a plat­form to help shape re­gion­al en­er­gy gov­er­nance — if it choos­es to use it.But lead­er­ship re­quires fore­sight.

Gov­ern­ment must an­tic­i­pate the geopo­lit­i­cal risks tied to Drag­on — es­pe­cial­ly the de­pen­dence on US sanc­tions re­lief and the in­flu­ence of the Chi­nese in Venezuela’s en­er­gy sec­tor. It must al­so strength­en ties with re­gion­al part­ners to en­sure Drag­on be­comes a foun­da­tion for sta­bil­i­ty, not a flash­point of com­pet­ing in­ter­ests with glob­al pow­ers al­ready com­pet­ing for in­flu­ence.

If the Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment wants to shape the re­gion’s fu­ture, it must act now: de­vel­op and an­nounce a clear, strate­gic for­eign pol­i­cy vi­sion that lever­ages T&T’s ex­pe­ri­ence, in­fra­struc­ture, and cred­i­bil­i­ty. Any­thing less will mean sur­ren­der­ing re­gion­al lead­er­ship to oth­ers.292929