DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Japan is look­ing to di­ver­si­fy its en­er­gy sup­plies be­yond the Mid­dle East, with Trinidad and To­ba­go iden­ti­fied as a po­ten­tial source as dis­rup­tions to ship­ping through the Strait of Hor­muz con­tin­ue to af­fect Japan­ese crude oil im­ports.

More than 90 per cent of Japan’s crude oil con­sump­tion is sourced from the Mid­dle East, ac­cord­ing to Japan­ese For­eign Press Sec­re­tary Ki­ta­mu­ra Toshi­hi­ro, leav­ing the Asian coun­try vul­ner­a­ble to dis­rup­tions along the key ship­ping route.

Speak­ing af­ter Japan­ese For­eign Min­is­ter Toshim­it­su Mote­gi paid a cour­tesy call to For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, Toshi­hi­ro said the par­tial block­ade of the Strait of Hor­muz had al­ready neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed Japan’s im­ports from the re­gion, prompt­ing Tokyo to ex­plore al­ter­na­tive sources of en­er­gy.

“So, we would like to di­ver­si­fy our re­source ori­gin from oth­er parts of the world than the Mid­dle East. So, this re­gion, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, is one of the po­ten­tial can­di­dates for the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of our en­er­gy,” Toshi­hi­ro said.

Japan and T&T have al­so reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to ex­plor­ing greater co­op­er­a­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor, al­though Toshi­hi­ro stressed that there was no spe­cif­ic agree­ment to an­nounce fol­low­ing the Japan­ese del­e­ga­tion’s vis­it with Sobers.

“Both min­is­ters have reaf­firmed our com­mit­ment to fur­ther ex­plore the co­op­er­a­tion in many ar­eas, in­clud­ing these en­er­gy sec­tors,” Toshi­hi­ro said in a sep­a­rate in­ter­view.

“To­day (Fri­day), to be hon­est, we have no tan­gi­ble or con­crete out­come to be an­nounced to the pub­lic. But based on the dis­cus­sions that they had, we would like to fol­low up.”

Toshi­hi­ro said the dis­cus­sions would con­tin­ue be­tween Japan­ese diplo­mats based in the coun­try and the Gov­ern­ment.

He al­so point­ed to grow­ing Japan­ese in­vest­ment, say­ing sev­er­al com­pa­nies have ex­pressed in­ter­est de­spite the ge­o­graph­ic dis­tance be­tween the two na­tions.

One area of in­ter­est is wa­ter re­source man­age­ment, with Toshi­hi­ro say­ing Toshi­ba Wa­ter So­lu­tions se­cured a con­tract from the gov­ern­ment in 2024 to con­struct five wa­ter sup­ply fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try.

Japan al­so has an es­tab­lished pres­ence in the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor.

The for­eign press sec­re­tary iden­ti­fied MaruEn­er­gy Trinidad, an LLC whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of Marubeni Cor­po­ra­tion of Japan, as an in­vestor in Pow­er­gen, while Mit­subishi-linked com­pa­nies are in­volved in Caribbean Gas Chem­i­cal Lim­it­ed (CG­CL), which pro­duces methanol and di­methyl ether.

He said Japan is al­ready im­port­ing pe­tro­le­um-re­lat­ed prod­ucts from the coun­try, not­ing its ge­o­graph­ic po­si­tion al­so makes trans­port routes an im­por­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for ex­pand­ing en­er­gy trade.

“As I said, For­eign Min­is­ter Mote­gi vis­it­ed Pana­ma be­cause (it’s) very im­por­tant for the Pana­ma Canal,” Toshi­hi­ro said, re­fer­ring to the canal’s im­por­tance as a tran­sit route.

“So, in or­der to ex­port from here to Japan, we have to go through the canal.”

He said Japan there­fore wants to en­sure that the Pana­ma Canal re­mains open to all coun­tries.

The com­ments come as Tokyo seeks to strength­en what Toshi­hi­ro de­scribed as a “re­silient sup­ply chain” with T&T and oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion.

He said the en­er­gy dis­cus­sions form part of a broad­er ef­fort to deep­en re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, amid what Japan con­sid­ers to be a se­vere in­ter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion.

Japan and T&T es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions in 1964 and marked their 60th an­niver­sary in 2024.

Neu­tral on US strikes

in Caribbean

Mean­while, Japan de­clined to en­dorse or con­demn US mil­i­tary strikes against sus­pect­ed drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean Sea, say­ing it is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and stress­ing the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al or­der based on the rule of law.

The com­ments come as T&T’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in a US-led re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty task force brings the T&T De­fence Force in­to a wider re­gion­al frame­work tar­get­ing transna­tion­al crime.

Toshi­hi­ro told Guardian Me­dia that Tokyo had no of­fi­cial po­si­tion on T&T’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Joint Task Force West­ern Hemi­sphere (JTF-WHEM), part of the US-led Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive.

Asked whether Japan sup­ports US mil­i­tary ac­tions, in­clud­ing the on­go­ing strikes on sus­pect­ed drug boats in the Caribbean in re­cent months, Ki­ta­mu­ra said, “As a gov­ern­ment, I have no of­fi­cial state­ment to be made. But we con­sid­er it’s very im­por­tant to main­tain in­ter­na­tion­al or­der based on the rule of law. And we are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion both in the Caribbean re­gion, as well as Mid­dle East re­gion, et cetera.”

Pressed fur­ther on whether Japan sup­ports the US ac­tions, he said, “It’s very dif­fi­cult to re­spond to your ques­tion di­rect­ly. But, the US is very im­por­tant to us. But, at the same time, we al­so con­sid­er that main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al or­der based on rule of law very im­por­tant.”

Asked about JTF-WHEM and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion against transna­tion­al crime, Ki­ta­mu­ra said: “Ad­dress­ing se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty is­sues is very im­por­tant for each coun­try. And if you unite those, (in­audi­ble) to elim­i­nate such il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ing or or­gan­ised crime, it is a very good thing.”

Ki­ta­mu­ra al­so said Japan is pre­pared to pro­vide T&T with tech­nol­o­gy and ex­per­tise to strength­en its na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ty, sub­ject to reg­u­la­tions im­posed by the T&T Gov­ern­ment.

“We are ready to do so but once again there are some re­stric­tions with re­gard to the reg­u­la­tions by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment.”

And as T&T pre­pares to take up a non-per­ma­nent seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Ki­ta­mu­ra said Japan wants to work close­ly with T&T dur­ing its tenure.

“So, it is a good oc­ca­sion for us to align our un­der­stand­ing, our aware­ness, our per­spec­tive against the in­ter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion like this. And we al­so pro­mote the UN re­form so that the UN can ad­just the cur­rent in­ter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion.”

Japan is al­so main­tain­ing its sup­port for the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), even as sev­er­al coun­tries have ini­ti­at­ed or an­nounced with­drawals from the Rome Statute.

“We con­sid­er that the ICC plays a very im­por­tant role in main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al or­der based on the rule of law,” Ki­ta­mu­ra said, high­light­ing the lead­er­ship of Japan­ese judge Tomoko Akane, who has served as pres­i­dent of the ICC since March 2024.