Days of ran­corous fight­ing be­tween Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2026 Bud­get ex­pen­di­ture fad­ed in­to the wood­work on Thurs­day with word of to­mor­row’s ar­rival of the USS Grave­ly, and all that brings with it.

Gov­ern­ment meet­ings went on in­to ear­ly Fri­day, plan­ning for the war­ship’s ar­rival, which has eclipsed even the 24-hour de­par­ture of ex-chief jus­tice Ivor Archie and his suc­ces­sor, Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh’s de­but.

When (and if) Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­pears for to­day’s SFC ex­am­i­na­tion of her min­istry, her replies will be over­shad­owed by the rest of the ques­tions on nu­mer­ous is­sues still lin­ger­ing af­ter state­ments. But as a new gov­ern­ment in a coun­try where con­fi­dence is a con­stant toe­hold chal­lenge, the Prime Min­is­ter has to keep the pop­u­la­tion calm.

With con­tin­u­al­ly in­creas­ing US/Venezuela sabre-rat­tling man­i­fest­ing from the US ar­ma­da and B-1 bomber buzz to cor­re­spond­ing Venezuela Na­tion­al De­fence drills from yes­ter­day and the de­ploy­ment of Russ­ian-made Igla-S mis­siles, the re­gion and Trinidad and To­ba­go re­main in the mid­dle.

Braced for the brink.

Af­ter Cari­com’s col­lec­tive of lead­ers—mi­nus T&T’s—spoke against the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty build-up, heav­ier cur­rents brought out ven­er­a­ble for­mer Cari­com lead­ers, adding to ap­peals against it.

Clock­ing “Iron La­dy” stripes, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion on Cari­com’s stance was clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed, in­clud­ing on pos­si­ble reper­cus­sions for T&T. Her view that her “on­ly care and con­cern is for T&T’s peo­ple” car­ries im­pli­ca­tions re­gard­ing neigh­bours, with which the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to work.

If her po­lit­i­cal hedg­ing with the US has put T&T in­to iso­la­tion—much like that coun­try is—it’s ahead how T&T’s path in the re­gion pro­gress­es af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first Cari­com In­ter­s­es­sion­al ap­pear­ance re­sult­ed in a rift in the re­gion­al fab­ric.

Now, war­ship Grave­ly’s call and the 22nd US Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit’s joint ex­er­cis­es with T&T’s De­fence Force have telegraphed var­i­ous mes­sages be­yond drug in­ter­dic­tion train­ing:

The US is slid­ing an­oth­er step clos­er to Venezuela and the ex­pect­ed in­evitable. Amer­i­ca’s pres­ence in a coun­try whose leader was the tar­get of Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez’s re­cent rant. Au­ra of US pro­tec­tion for T&T. This coun­try’s host­ing of US as­sets that oth­er Caribbean states refuse, plac­ing T&T fur­ther down Cari­com’s rat­ing for break­ing ranks. T&T out­strip­ping Guyana as US BFF(best friend for­ev­er). And eco­nom­ic and oth­er im­pli­ca­tions for T&T from the en­tire sce­nario, with or with­out war.

The US mil­i­tary pres­ence and ad­vances, where CIA op­er­a­tives are with­in Venezuela work­ing on (Nico­las) Maduro’s regime, con­vey that this isn’t a sit­u­a­tion the US can re­treat from grace­ful­ly, con­sid­er­ing its chal­lenges and glob­al plan.

Whether the US may re­quire more as­sets land­ing in T&T re­mains ahead with Grave­ly’s mid­week de­par­ture—and what may de­vel­op by then.

In the over­all sce­nario and what aris­es, it re­mains to be seen if T&T’s State of Emer­gency, due to end No­vem­ber 5, will be ex­tend­ed (or not) on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s call. And if so, whether con­tin­u­a­tion may sig­nal more to “break” in the in­ter­na­tion­al sce­nario around T&T.

In chal­lenges, Gov­ern­ment’s al­ready han­dling, in­clud­ing the Nu­trien ex­it is­sue, in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, which had con­firmed dis­cov­ery of the planned “hit” on De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, had al­so not­ed al­leged neg­a­tive ma­te­r­i­al cir­cu­lat­ed, sources said.

But the Petrotrin re­fin­ery restart pre­lim­i­nary re­port is more promis­ing. Pro­jec­tions are that it can restart on a phased ba­sis among its 22 plants once an in­vestor with the re­quired fund­ing of ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$2 bil­lion is found. With US com­pa­ny doors open in the en­er­gy sec­tor, whether as­sis­tance from that coun­try to T&T—af­ter the ex­panse of sup­port the Gov­ern­ment has giv­en—is ahead. In­ter­est is be­ing ex­pressed; it’s un­der­stood.

The SFC ex­am­i­na­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s “T&T First” Bud­get, sim­i­lar­ly themed to the US “Amer­i­ca First” slo­gan, was a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for some.

For min­is­ters: loose de­tails and fo­cus on up­stag­ing the Op­po­si­tion, by some, meant a loss of clear pre­sen­ta­tion.

For SFC chair­man Jagdeo Singh: herd­ing the of­ten ar­gu­ing, shout­ing MPs, shep­herd­ing some, and seek­ing to light­en the at­mos­phere with dry hu­mour.

For the Op­po­si­tion: if leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’s Bud­get re­ply was want­i­ng and MPs dropped the ball at the end of the House de­bate, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment skill emerged in grilling the Gov­ern­ment.

What­ev­er’s around T&T’s wa­ters in the near fu­ture, Sen­ate de­bate of the Bud­get will have to be con­clud­ed mid­week—re­gard­less of who fires first. Or not.