Bat­tles en­gaged in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, Wednes­day and yes­ter­day weren’t the cause for cer­tain de­par­tures from T&T re­cent­ly.

On Wednes­day, as Sen­a­tors wran­gled in Par­lia­ment, a num­ber of yachties qui­et­ly de­part­ed T&T, just as some Tri­nis re­cent­ly head­ed to oth­er is­lands. The cause of con­cern: in­creased pres­sure on T&T amid US-Venezue­lan ten­sions.

What­ev­er lies ahead - par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter yes­ter­day’s con­flict­ing re­ports from the US on Venezuela - the three months of the State of Emer­gency ap­proved in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, will de­ter­mine if it serves T&T be­yond crime re­duc­tion, aid­ing Gov­ern­ment’s “crime fight­ing” record.

Con­cerns height­ened with De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s re­fusal yes­ter­day to re­ply to queries on the De­fence Force high alert.

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, which of­fi­cial­ly aired its sup­port for Venezuela - with leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les meet­ing with Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador - yes­ter­day called out the Gov­ern­ment on the full in­tent of the SoE.

This, with the back­wash of the USS Grave­ly and all it brought T&T: In­tim­i­dat­ing war­ship as a flash­point ex­ac­er­bat­ing Venezue­lan-T&T ten­sions. Bal­anced by friend­ly Grave­ly ac­tion host­ing stu­dents from Venezue­lans’ Ce­dros en­try point. Venezuela seiz­ing Grave­ly’s pres­ence to pound US proxy T&T with con­spir­a­cy ac­cu­sa­tions. Ag­gres­sive­ly sev­er­ing gas agree­ments with T&T. Cara­cas protests against the PM. Ban­ning her. T&T’s re­spons­es heard and felt.

Nei­ther Venezuela nor T&T took re­spec­tive provo­ca­tion be­yond ver­bal­is­ing. Hard ac­tion by the for­mer would have fa­cil­i­tat­ed a US op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tack in T&T’s de­fence. Any­thing from T&T would have served Venezuela’s pur­pose as vic­tim, af­fect­ing US plans.

In the T&T chap­ter be­tween both Venezuela and US ma­noeu­vres test­ing each side, this coun­try, with un­for­tu­nate po­ten­tial of be­ing a false flag ... fouled on both, re­mained a pawn and col­lat­er­al dam­age-bound amid the big­ger pic­ture.

A geopo­lit­i­cal war: US and its friend­lies glob­al­ly. Venezuela and its al­lies glob­al­ly.

Af­ter re­cent “fire,” For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ Thurs­day dis­clo­sure was in­struc­tive: he’d had been in con­tact with Venezuela’s am­bas­sador and “sev­er­al dis­cus­sions are en­gag­ing both sides,” when asked about the Drag­on project and Venezuela de­clar­ing the Prime Min­is­ter per­sona non gra­ta.

Gov­ern­ment’s call for a meet­ing just be­fore the Grave­ly left sought to open lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion on re­cent events since last Sun­day. Min­istry of­fi­cials al­so con­firmed no ul­ti­ma­tums were giv­en.

Fol­low­ing this at­tempt to de-es­ca­late ten­sions, yes­ter­day’s claims about US airstrikes, prompt­ing de­nial by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, still caused un­ease. And height­ened Venezue­lan prepa­ra­tions.

Bar­ba­dos and Do­mini­ca’s lead­ers and church­es ap­pealed for di­a­logue to stop any war. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, tossed back­hand swipes at Cari­com and Venezuela.

A day af­ter In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Fran­cis Lewis urged Gov­ern­ment to be care­ful in up­set­ting T&T’s Cari­com mar­ket - Gov­ern­ment lashed Cari­com spir­its and “smokes,” em­u­lat­ing US tar­iff modus operan­di. Con­tem­pla­tion of mass de­por­ta­tion of il­le­gals al­so em­u­lat­ed sim­i­lar US ac­tions. Me­dia “mes­sen­gers” at­tempts to get in­for­ma­tion have seen sar­casm from some front­lin­ers, neg­a­tive fa­cial ex­pres­sion, vent­ing and all.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, large­ly part of the PNM’s down­fall, is al­so a great part of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment’s prob­lem - be­yond the lack of a com­mu­ni­ca­tion min­is­ter, an­nounc­ing SoE ex­ten­sion via TV show etc. In­deed, the PM’s X ac­count launch on Wednes­day ac­knowl­edged the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion reach deficit.

Cre­at­ing and adding to her his­to­ry for trig­ger­ing large Cara­cas protests, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ef­fort to down­play and de­flect T&T’s role in the US-Venezue­lan is­sue - ques­tion­ing why Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties “tar­get­ed” her, rather than Amer­i­ca’s leader - was an un­for­tu­nate aware­ness of her head­lin­er state­ments on it.

T&T can­not now with­draw US sup­port. Gov­ern­ment’s sal­va­tion re­sides in the hope that its part­ner’s mis­sion suc­ceeds and tan­gi­bles from the US.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s “dog whis­tle” to T&T cit­i­zens to pre­vent the US from “start­ing a war in the Caribbean is un­like­ly to get a re­sponse. But the toll from Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion in­cludes T&T-based Venezue­lans who fled Maduro’s regime and ini­tial­ly ex­ult­ed at the T&T/US re­la­tion­ship.

There’s now fear in the com­mu­ni­ty af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre-elec­tion ma­ter­nal pro­file was re­placed by an Iron La­dy coun­te­nance. Many Venezue­lans al­ready wor­ried about rel­a­tives “back home” say they’re be­ing asked for ID in places and last week’s road­blocks had some scared of ICE-type op­er­a­tions.

Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials said the De­cem­ber 31 dead­line for work per­mits may be ex­tend­ed; whether they are amend­ed is ahead.

Along with oth­er de­vel­op­ments on the hori­zon.