Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is wel­com­ing the po­ten­tial talks be­tween Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Venezuela’s Nico­las Maduro. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that any di­a­logue must be ground­ed in hon­esty and trans­paren­cy, rather than in the “con­tin­u­ous de­fence or de­nial of wrong­do­ing.”

The dis­cus­sion about pos­si­ble talks emerged in the midst of ex­treme ten­sion be­tween both coun­tries and the po­ten­tial for di­rect con­flict. Dur­ing a me­dia ex­change on Sun­day, Trump was asked, “With the des­ig­na­tion of that car­tel, as­so­ci­at­ed with Maduro, does that mean that the US Gov­ern­ment can tar­get Maduro’s as­sets or in­fra­struc­ture in­side Venezuela?” He re­spond­ed, “It al­lows us to do that, but we haven’t said we’re go­ing to do that, and we may be hav­ing some dis­cus­sions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like, they would like to talk.”

Asked for a com­ment on this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “The best way to solve prob­lems is through di­a­logue. There are many press­ing prob­lems that re­quire in­ter­ven­tion.”

She then out­lined what she be­lieves should be pri­ori­tised in any dis­cus­sions. List­ing the is­sues, she said, “There’s the prob­lem with nar­co traf­fick­ing, drug run­ning and hu­man traf­fick­ing. There’s the prob­lem of elec­tions not be­ing free and fair. There’s the prob­lem of dan­ger­ous gangs wreak­ing hav­oc in oth­er coun­tries. There’s the prob­lem of a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis where mil­lions flee op­pres­sive regimes.” She added, “I sup­port both di­a­logue and di­rect ac­tion.”

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, Act­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath was asked whether the coun­try had a de­sire to be in­volved in those dis­cus­sions. He replied, “We are not in the habit of in­sert­ing our­selves in hy­po­thet­i­cal sit­u­a­tions.”

Else­where in the re­gion, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne al­so weighed in, call­ing for the po­ten­tial talks be­tween the US and Venezuela to ma­te­ri­alise. “We en­cour­age Pres­i­dent Trump to re­solve the dif­fer­ences be­tween the US and Venezuela through diplo­ma­cy and di­a­logue. Let’s con­tin­ue to pre­serve our hemi­sphere as a zone of peace,” Browne post­ed on Face­book yes­ter­day.

But even as the US Pres­i­dent sig­nalled open­ness to a diplo­mat­ic path with Maduro, the Amer­i­can pos­ture re­mained com­pli­cat­ed. US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio and the State De­part­ment des­ig­nat­ed the Car­tel de los Soles as a For­eign Ter­ror­ist Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FTO), an or­gan­i­sa­tion the US has ac­cused Maduro of lead­ing. Maduro and his gov­ern­ment have de­nied all al­le­ga­tions of ties to drug traf­fick­ing and have re­ject­ed the US des­ig­na­tion.

The FTO clas­si­fi­ca­tion gives the US gov­ern­ment sev­er­al pow­er­ful le­gal tools, pri­mar­i­ly fo­cused on iso­lat­ing the group fi­nan­cial­ly, crim­i­nal­ly, and with re­spect to trav­el. The des­ig­na­tion came at a time when US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion con­tin­ues to draw at­ten­tion.

The US naval pres­ence in the Caribbean Sea is cur­rent­ly close to a dozen Navy ves­sels, es­ti­mat­ed to be around ten to 12 ships. This sig­nif­i­cant build-up in­cludes the USS Ger­ald R Ford air­craft car­ri­er and its as­so­ci­at­ed Car­ri­er Strike Group, which in­cludes sev­er­al guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­ers. The in­creased pres­ence, which be­gan in late Au­gust 2025, is de­scribed by the US as part of “Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear,” aimed at com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2, US forces have car­ried out 21 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and the East­ern Pa­cif­ic Ocean against ves­sels they al­lege were in­volved in drug smug­gling, killing over 80 peo­ple.