Along with the painting of the Magnificent Seven buildings and locally made chocolates, which Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers took to Venezuelan Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Félix Plasencia at Thursday’s working visit, Sobers also toted a heavy bag of responsibilities.
In the year since word of a T&T visit to Venezuela arose in 2025, the air between Caracas and Port-of-Spain has been shot with verbal shrapnel from both sides. And the US has been in the middle of it all. After the US’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores altered the landscape, acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez has opened to international and regional overtures and T&T’s turn finally came Thursday. After Grenada and Barbados.
As a US ally, Government’s months-long pursuit of the resumption of relations with the “mainland” achieved headway with Thursday’s meeting of frontline emissaries of both sides, taking each administration’s measure on this reconnaissance mission, particularly for T&T.
Government’s already declared an intention to have a seat at energy discussion tables for T&T to get its “fair share,” and that’s expected to be a key focus. If the US wants Venezuela’s oil, T&T wants its gas. And Venezuela needs Atlantic LNG’s infrastructure.
Attention ahead will keenly be on T&T Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Rodríguez, who Sobers’ ministry has touted as leading the “healing.” However, the communique’s point on a permanent communication channel to advance work telegraphed that the memory of last year’s issues is long, and T&T’s being auditioned. And bridge-building is at test stage, where T&T must show itself as a trustworthy partner before Government’s obvious eagerness for both leaders to meet can materialise. Whether a photo-op at the United Nations General Assembly or otherwise, is ahead.
Whether the T&T/Venezuela development—arriving before the 2027 Budget—expected in early October, produces headway that may aid the Budget is to unfold.
With the Lower and Upper Houses expected back by September 14, respectively, queries on the matter will join other Opposition questions for Parliament on the State of Emergency’s path; Independence celebrations’ real cost; police post cost/contractors and US project details.
Sobers’ meeting was timely for his Government after its image took a (further) nosedive following certain Independence messages by his boss. If there are questions whether the Caracas caucus would benefit all of T&T rather than only the PM’s “most important UNC family,” Sobers has his boss’s latest controversial utterances to thank for that.
On Monday at the Queen’s Park Savannah’s Independence Day Parade, there was polite applause for Persad-Bissessar’s arrival. Audible cheers and louder applause for President Christine Kangaloo, who was presiding over her second-to-last Independence function before demitting office in March 2028.
The fireworks that came and went were not silent, leaving physical victims and creating opportunities for further casualties down the road after Persad-Bissessar’s remarks, now seen increasingly to be reckless.
The chasm between her Independence Day message to all of T&T last Sunday and her message to “UNC family” on Monday was another legacy note. The former: a lacklustre composition with the intriguing note, “We all fall at times ... make regrettable choices …. foolishly take shortcuts.”
Whether a harbinger of sorts, the next day’s message specifically acknowledged “the most important people to me - the UNC family.”
The “dog whistle” to members, lest they forget, reject or neglect her, came at a time when the Government increasingly faces challenges and criticism. Her subsequent defence of the remarks completed her consideration for citizens whose “bad behaviour” she slammed the same day she rated “inner ruthlessness and savagery” among leadership traits.
It all furthered her penchant for division. Knocked fairness out of the image of T&T leadership. And pelted away—on Independence Day, no less—the National Anthem’s assurance of equal place, for every creed and race.
Some UNC members are now concerned about becoming targets of fallout from the remarks. Other citizens now also have Government’s latest albatross of leadership confessions to contemplate.
After a Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha view emerged on the issue, the depth of injury to the PM’s image, and Government’s, showed in subsequent damage-control defence statements from two ministers in the Office of the Prime Minister. And with that indirect double-down, it’s obvious: Government in Parliament will take its cue from the PM—“total war.”
