On Wednes­day, on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared that she loves Venezuela’s in­ter­im Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez and looks for­ward to meet­ing her on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly lat­er this month.

While un­usu­al in diplo­mat­ic cir­cles, the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks may be viewed as the lat­est step in re­build­ing and nor­mal­is­ing re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and its clos­est neigh­bour.

The first step came last Thurs­day when Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers met his Venezue­lan coun­ter­part in Cara­cas. That meet­ing pro­duced a roadmap for greater co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas in­clud­ing trade and the joint de­vel­op­ment of en­er­gy re­sources.

The more im­por­tant ques­tion, how­ev­er, is not how the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments are re­ceived in T&T, but how they are viewed in Cara­cas.

A re­al mea­sure of Venezuela’s will­ing­ness to re­set re­la­tions would be whether its Na­tion­al As­sem­bly is pre­pared to re­voke the de­c­la­ra­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar as per­sona non gra­ta, passed unan­i­mous­ly on Oc­to­ber 28, 2025.

That de­ci­sion fol­lowed strong­ly word­ed state­ments by the Prime Min­is­ter, who ac­cused the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion of sup­port­ing nar­co-ter­ror­ists and sup­press­ing po­lit­i­cal op­po­si­tion. Those com­ments pro­voked a sharp re­sponse from Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and sig­nif­i­cant­ly strained bi­lat­er­al ties.

Whether Ro­dríguez is will­ing and able to help re­verse that po­si­tion re­mains a key ques­tion.

As Venezuela’s vice pres­i­dent at the time, she played a cen­tral role in events that led to the leg­isla­tive ac­tion. One day be­fore the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly vote, Ro­dríguez rec­om­mend­ed the im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of cross-bor­der en­er­gy agree­ments with Trinidad and To­ba­go fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tions with state en­er­gy of­fi­cials.

Her fo­cus on en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion was sig­nif­i­cant. It re­flect­ed an un­der­stand­ing that nat­ur­al gas col­lab­o­ra­tion is cen­tral to the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries and re­mains one of the most im­por­tant ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

Then Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro ap­proved the rec­om­men­da­tion, and the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly moved the fol­low­ing day to sus­pend en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion agree­ments.

Against that back­drop, the Gov­ern­ment still faces con­sid­er­able work to re­pair re­la­tions and cre­ate the con­di­tions nec­es­sary for mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions on the de­vel­op­ment and pro­cess­ing of Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas. Warm words alone are un­like­ly to ac­com­plish that task. Cre­ative diplo­ma­cy and sus­tained en­gage­ment will be re­quired.

What cur­rent­ly works in T&T’s favour is the grow­ing con­ver­gence of in­ter­ests among Port-of-Spain, Cara­cas and Wash­ing­ton. The Unit­ed States has a strate­gic in­ter­est in see­ing Venezuela’s en­er­gy re­sources de­vel­oped in a man­ner that con­tributes to re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.

If that re­sults in a high-lev­el meet­ing be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez in New York lat­er this month, it could rep­re­sent an im­por­tant step to­ward re­build­ing trust.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the goal must be big­ger than sym­bol­ism. It is firm­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al in­ter­est to se­cure ac­cess to nat­ur­al gas from Venezuela’s cross-bor­der and near-bor­der fields for pro­cess­ing at Point Lisas, La Brea and Point Fortin.

As re­la­tions be­gin to thaw, the Prime Min­is­ter must re­main fo­cused on ad­vanc­ing the coun­try’s long-term na­tion­al in­ter­ests. Friend­ship may help open the door, but on­ly care­ful diplo­ma­cy will se­cure last­ing re­sults.