An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

An in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert is warn­ing that while in­vestor con­fi­dence in T&T re­mains steady at this point, the coun­try could be­come ex­posed to sig­nif­i­cant risks if it drifts too far in­to the or­bit of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela.

That is the warn­ing from Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, for­mer head of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, who cau­tions that while there is no im­me­di­ate threat to busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty, the sit­u­a­tion could evolve in ways that put the na­tion di­rect­ly in the line of fire.

Last week, at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly and ve­he­ment­ly de­clared that this coun­try, along with the Unit­ed States, will fight “fire with fire” to push back against drugs and gang war­fare in the Caribbean re­gion.

The PM ac­knowl­edged that oth­er coun­tries may dis­agree with her po­si­tion, but they do not face the same chal­lenges as T&T.

“While there have been ob­jec­tions to the US mil­i­tary ac­tion against drug car­tels in the south­ern Caribbean, some ob­jec­tions from some coun­tries, I state to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­minds the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that un­less force­ful and ag­gres­sive ac­tions are tak­en, these evil drug car­tels will con­tin­ue their so­ci­etal de­struc­tion be­cause they be­lieve af­fect­ed na­tions will al­ways un­re­served­ly sub­scribe to morals and ethics and hu­man rights and val­ues which they them­selves bla­tant­ly flout.”

Speak­ing to the Busi­ness Guardian mag­a­zine, Dr Gon­za­les said, “At this point, noth­ing has hap­pened that could shake in­vestor con­fi­dence. If peo­ple de­cide to in­vest for a par­tic­u­lar rea­son, those fac­tors re­main un­changed. But if the cri­sis deep­ens, and we get to the point where Trinidad is asked to host a US mil­i­tary base for op­er­a­tions against Venezuela, that is where the eco­nom­ic fall­out could be sig­nif­i­cant. At that point, in­vestors will think twice about com­mit­ting cap­i­tal.”

Stress­ing that the po­ten­tial ex­po­sure, lies not in to­day’s head­lines but in how po­lit­i­cal choic­es un­fold, he said for­eign pol­i­cy mis­steps could shift the per­cep­tion of T&T from a neu­tral trad­ing part­ner to a front­line stag­ing ground in a geopo­lit­i­cal con­flict.

Gon­za­les ex­plained that much of the cur­rent dis­cus­sion mis­un­der­stands what the “zone of peace” con­cept rep­re­sents. He re­mind­ed that the frame­work is not a com­men­tary on re­gion­al crime lev­els, but rather a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment by Caribbean states to keep the re­gion free from great-pow­er mil­i­tary clash­es.

“The zone of peace is re­al­ly about pre­vent­ing con­flict among big pow­ers in the re­gion,” he said. “We don’t want the Amer­i­cans fight­ing with the Rus­sians or the Chi­nese and the Venezue­lans. That’s why, since the Cuban mis­sile cri­sis of 1963, Cari­com’s po­si­tion has been clear: the Caribbean should not be used as a bat­tle­ground.”

Against that back­drop, he found trou­bling re­cent rhetoric about “fight­ing fire with fire.” While he ac­knowl­edged that the phras­ing may have been di­rect­ed at drug traf­fick­ers and or­gan­ised crime, Gon­za­les point­ed out that such lan­guage car­ries wider im­pli­ca­tions. Re­ports have cir­cu­lat­ed that the Unit­ed States could soon es­ca­late op­er­a­tions against Venezuela, whether by tar­get­ting drug car­tels, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, or even pur­su­ing regime change.

“That is the dan­ger,” he cau­tioned. “If we align our­selves with Amer­i­can ac­tions that re­sult in mil­i­tary dam­age to Venezuela, the Venezue­lans will re­tal­i­ate. Trinidad could be dragged in­to a con­flict that has noth­ing to do with our na­tion­al in­ter­ests.”

A call for cau­tion and neu­tral­i­ty

The con­cern for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, Gon­za­les sug­gest­ed, is not in the present mo­ment but in what could come. As long as Trinidad re­mains neu­tral and fo­cused on its do­mes­tic pri­or­i­ties, in­vestor con­fi­dence will hold. But the more the na­tion ap­pears to be tak­ing sides in a hemi­spher­ic con­fronta­tion, the greater the risks to sta­bil­i­ty and cap­i­tal in­flows.

“For the time be­ing, in­vestor sen­ti­ment is un­af­fect­ed,” he said. “But as this de­vel­ops, cau­tion and neu­tral­i­ty are the on­ly po­si­tions that can shield Trinidad and To­ba­go. Once you be­gin talk­ing about Amer­i­can bases and joint op­er­a­tions against Venezuela, you are invit­ing risks that ex­tend far be­yond diplo­ma­cy; they go straight to the eco­nom­ic heart of the coun­try.”

In the end, Gon­za­les framed the chal­lenge not as a ques­tion of short-term pol­i­tics, but as a test of fore­sight. “We have to an­tic­i­pate where this is head­ing,” he urged. “If we lose sight of neu­tral­i­ty, we risk be­ing caught in a con­flict that un­der­mines both our sov­er­eign­ty and our eco­nom­ic fu­ture.”

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue was an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert, Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight warned that such rhetoric risks low­er­ing T&T’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs, a cred­i­bil­i­ty that is vi­tal for at­tract­ing and sus­tain­ing for­eign in­vest­ment. “You can­not have our politi­cians, our lead­ers, us­ing that kind of rhetoric at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage,” he stressed. “That’s just not good. In­vestors are lis­ten­ing, and they will re­spond ac­cord­ing­ly.”
Pressed on whether this lan­guage could di­rect­ly af­fect in­vestor con­fi­dence, Knight was blunt. “Yes, it will have an im­pact on the econ­o­my in some ways,” he said. “Few­er and few­er peo­ple want to in­vest in Trinidad giv­en that kind of rhetoric. In the same way, we’ve no­ticed shifts in in­vest­ments away from the Unit­ed States as a re­sult of po­lit­i­cal rhetoric and in­sta­bil­i­ty there. Trinidad is not im­mune. Sta­bil­i­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty are the cur­ren­cy in­vestors look for.”

Knight cau­tioned that once a coun­try gains a rep­u­ta­tion for volatil­i­ty, whether through its pol­i­tics, diplo­ma­cy, or gov­er­nance, cap­i­tal tends to flow else­where. The Caribbean is in di­rect com­pe­ti­tion with oth­er small states for in­vest­ment dol­lars, he not­ed, and cred­i­bil­i­ty on the world stage can be a de­ci­sive fac­tor.

Crime, drugs threat­en in­vest­ment

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said un­less T&T deals de­ci­sive­ly with vi­o­lent crime and the flow of nar­cotics, the coun­try risks los­ing its rep­u­ta­tion as a safe haven for in­vest­ment.
Seep­er­sad-Bachan re­called that dur­ing the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion of 1995 to 2000, she was part of a team tasked with mar­ket­ing this coun­try as a se­cure des­ti­na­tion for en­er­gy in­vest­ments. That strat­e­gy, she not­ed, trans­formed the off­shore land­scape through suc­ces­sive bid rounds, at­tract­ing glob­al cap­i­tal on the strength of T&T’s rep­u­ta­tion as a low­er-risk ju­ris­dic­tion com­pared to its neigh­bours.
“Any in­vestor, whether in the en­er­gy sec­tor or any oth­er, will wel­come a coun­try that is free of crime and free of drugs,” she stressed. “Once the risk fac­tors in­crease, the cost of do­ing busi­ness ris­es, and you are no longer a safe haven for in­vest­ment.”
Seep­er­sad-Bachan ar­gued that tack­ling drug traf­fick­ing, firearms smug­gling, and vi­o­lent crime is not on­ly a mat­ter of pub­lic safe­ty but of safe­guard­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture. “If we want to re­turn to be­ing that safe haven, we must deal with the heinous crimes we have been en­coun­ter­ing over the last decade,” she in­sist­ed. “We must con­front the in­flow of drugs, guns, and am­mu­ni­tion across our bor­ders.”