Raphael John-Lall

With the Unit­ed States and Venezuela draw­ing clos­er to a mil­i­tary con­flict and T&T po­ten­tial­ly be­ing drawn in­to the mid­dle of it, there could be se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic and hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­se­quences that T&T must pre­pare for.

Giv­en this con­text, se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Dr Garvin Heer­ah is wor­ried that T&T may not be pre­pared.

He shared his con­cerns with the Busi­ness Guardian in a state­ment in Sep­tem­ber and an up­dat­ed one on Mon­day.

“Our pre­pared­ness re­mains lim­it­ed. T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty and de­fence ca­pa­bil­i­ties are un­der-re­sourced rel­a­tive to the scale of po­ten­tial state-lev­el con­fronta­tion. We would be com­pelled to re­ly heav­i­ly on in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners for de­ter­rence and de­fence. But equal­ly im­por­tant, we must recog­nise that an un­sta­ble se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment erodes our com­pet­i­tive­ness as a busi­ness hub, threat­ens for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment, and un­der­mines the very so­cio-eco­nom­ic fab­ric that sus­tains growth and de­vel­op­ment.”

He ar­gued that the re­cent ver­bal at­tacks from Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials against T&T could im­pact T&T’s busi­ness land­scape

“As a re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert, I must un­der­score that the re­cent lan­guage from Cara­cas car­ries pro­found im­pli­ca­tions not on­ly for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty but al­so for the eco­nom­ic and busi­ness land­scape of T&T and, by ex­ten­sion, the wider Caribbean. When Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro frames re­marks by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a ‘de­c­la­ra­tion of war,’ this is not rhetoric to be brushed aside. Such lan­guage is po­lit­i­cal­ly charged, ac­tion-trig­ger­ing, and can rapid­ly un­set­tle the re­gion­al en­vi­ron­ment.”

He said the im­me­di­ate se­cu­ri­ty con­cern is clear: if Venezuela in­ter­prets T&T as a po­ten­tial stag­ing point for US op­er­a­tions, T&T’s in­fra­struc­ture be­comes a strate­gic tar­get.

“This el­e­vates risks to crit­i­cal na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly our oil, gas, and en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties, which are the back­bone of T&T’s econ­o­my. It al­so places our ports, ship­ping lanes, and lo­gis­tics hubs at height­ened risk. Dis­rup­tion to these sec­tors would have cas­cad­ing ef­fects: in­ter­rup­tions in trade, desta­bil­i­sa­tion of sup­ply chains, re­duced in­vestor con­fi­dence and po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic iso­la­tion if the per­cep­tion of in­sta­bil­i­ty takes hold.”

Heer­ah said the warn­ing of Venezue­lan De­fence Min­is­ter Vladimir Padri­no López in Sep­tem­ber that “any at­tack launched from T&T’s ter­ri­to­ry would re­ceive a re­sponse” is a sig­nal of re­tal­ia­to­ry in­tent and could have a neg­a­tive im­pact on for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI).

“Be­yond mil­i­tary plan­ning, such de­c­la­ra­tions shake the con­fi­dence of for­eign in­vestors, in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners and lo­cal busi­ness­es. The spec­tre of re­tal­ia­to­ry ac­tion af­fects not just se­cu­ri­ty but al­so in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums, ship­ping costs, in­vestor ap­petite and the will­ing­ness of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions to sus­tain or ex­pand op­er­a­tions in T&T. Cham­bers of com­merce and the pri­vate sec­tor must be in­clud­ed in cri­sis con­sul­ta­tions, be­cause the eco­nom­ic fall­out of se­cu­ri­ty in­sta­bil­i­ty is im­me­di­ate and tan­gi­ble.”

Heer­ah ad­vised that a Na­tion­al Threat As­sess­ment Task Force (NTAC) must be es­tab­lished with not on­ly se­cu­ri­ty and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, but al­so rep­re­sen­ta­tion from eco­nom­ic min­istries, cham­bers of com­merce and crit­i­cal in­dus­tries.

This body, he said, must pro­vide ver­i­fied threat as­sess­ments, counter mis­in­for­ma­tion and guide both se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture and eco­nom­ic re­as­sur­ance.

“This cen­tre should op­er­ate as a nerve hub, in­ter­fac­ing di­rect­ly with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­tel­li­gence part­ners, while feed­ing au­then­ti­cat­ed, time-sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion to na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ers. Such a struc­tured in­tel­li­gence frame­work will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce de­pen­dence on un­ver­i­fied so­cial me­dia nar­ra­tives, open-source spec­u­la­tion, and sen­sa­tion­alised re­port­ing from tra­di­tion­al me­dia hous­es.”

Risks in­volved

Ken Hack­shaw, who is the Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Risk Man­age­ment Acad­e­my and CEO of the T&T Risk Man­age­ment In­sti­tute shared some of the risks in­volved in a po­ten­tial con­flict in a state­ment he sent to the Busi­ness Guardian.

“The au­tho­ri­sa­tion of CIA covert op­er­a­tions in Venezuela by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in­tro­duces a com­plex web of re­gion­al risk ex­po­sures for T&T and for the Caribbean,” he said.

He gave a break­down of the most crit­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties that T&T faces in the mid­dle of this sce­nario.

1. Geopo­lit­i­cal spillover

Desta­bil­i­sa­tion of Venezuela could trig­ger un­rest across bor­ders, es­pe­cial­ly in T&T and Guyana.

2. Mi­gra­tion surges

In­creased covert op­er­a­tions and po­ten­tial con­flict may lead to mass dis­place­ment of Venezue­lans, in­ten­si­fy­ing mi­gra­tion flows to T&T and oth­er Caribbean is­lands.

Strain on pub­lic ser­vices, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse sys­tems, es­pe­cial­ly in T&T, Guyana, and pos­si­bly the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

3. Drug traf­fick­ing dis­rup­tion

US op­er­a­tions tar­get­ting drug routes may redi­rect traf­fick­ing cor­ri­dors through Caribbean wa­ters and ports. (This may have al­ready start­ed).

Risk of in­creased mar­itime in­ter­dic­tions, crim­i­nal re­tal­i­a­tion, and cor­rup­tion pres­sures on lo­cal en­force­ment agen­cies.

4. En­er­gy mar­ket volatil­i­ty

Venezuela’s oil sec­tor dis­rup­tion could im­pact re­gion­al fu­el sup­ply chains.

Po­ten­tial for price spikes or sup­ply in­sta­bil­i­ty in diesel, LNG, and re­fined prod­ucts.

5. Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and third-par­ty risk

Covert op­er­a­tions may pro­voke state-spon­sored cy­ber re­tal­i­a­tion tar­get­ting US al­lies, like T&T.

Caribbean util­i­ties, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, and gov­ern­ment net­works may face el­e­vat­ed third-par­ty risk ex­po­sure such as cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.

6. In­vestor con­fi­dence and sov­er­eign risk

Height­ened re­gion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty could lead to down­grades in sov­er­eign cred­it out­looks, es­pe­cial­ly for is­lands with eco­nom­ic ties to Venezuela or high debt ex­po­sure.

Risk of cap­i­tal flight, de­layed FDI, and in­creased in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums for Caribbean as­sets.

7. Re­silience and en­ter­prise risk man­age­ment (ERM) gaps

Many Caribbean in­sti­tu­tions lack for­mal ERM frame­works, re­silience frame­works, and sce­nario plan­ning that aid in de­ci­sions that will iden­ti­fy what and how to ab­sorb shocks from these geopo­lit­i­cal events.

This mo­ment un­der­scores the ur­gent need for re­silience: an­tic­i­pat­ing and adapt­ing be­fore dis­rup­tion strikes.

Hack­shaw then gave rec­om­mend­ed strate­gic re­spons­es for T&T and oth­er Caribbean is­lands:

* Ac­ti­vate na­tion­al risk co­or­di­na­tion plans.

* Pri­vate and pub­lic agen­cies: Con­duct sce­nario plan­ning (what-if sce­nar­ios) for mi­gra­tion, en­er­gy, and cy­ber threats.

* Strength­en bor­der re­silience, mar­itime sur­veil­lance, and third-par­ty risk over­sight.

* Up­date/amend and em­bed risk-in­formed de­ci­sion-mak­ing in­to the re­cent bud­get al­lo­ca­tions.