T&T has found it­self in a mi­nor diplo­mat­ic row with the Unit­ed States over the re­port that a ship­ment of gaso­line in­tend­ed for Aru­ba may have end­ed up in Venezuela. This would be in vi­o­la­tion of the sanc­tions im­posed on its state-owned oil and nat­ur­al gas com­pa­ny, PDVSA, which were in­tend­ed to pres­sure Pres­i­dent Maduro to re­sign fol­low­ing the dis­put­ed 2019 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

It should be not­ed that the re­port orig­i­nat­ed from a Venezue­lan news ser­vice and has not been in­de­pen­dent­ly con­firmed. How­ev­er, it did prompt a re­sponse from the US State De­part­ment and the lo­cal em­bassy, both of which have pledged to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter fur­ther.

How­ev­er, they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­it­er­ate the po­si­tion that any coun­try or non-state en­ti­ty as­sist­ing the Maduro regime in cir­cum­vent­ing US sanc­tions will face some of their own.

This was a not-so-sub­tle warn­ing. We are be­ing told that if we choose to stick with Venezuela, we risk jeop­ar­dis­ing our re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States. In oth­er words--we need to think care­ful­ly about who we count as our friends.

Of course, as a small state, it ben­e­fits us to be on good terms with those coun­tries with­in our hemi­sphere. But that pol­i­cy has put us in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion--right in the mid­dle of some­one else’s fight. On one hand, the Unit­ed States is a ma­jor trade and se­cu­ri­ty part­ner.

But on the oth­er, Venezuela is our clos­est neigh­bour… and we’ve al­ready wit­nessed how its (de­te­ri­o­rat­ing) do­mes­tic is­sues end up spilling on­to our shores. How do we choose…and should we even have to? Af­ter all, Amer­i­ca’s is­sues with Venezuela have noth­ing to do with us.

The quandary we’re in is the di­rect re­sult of the re­la­tion­ship our gov­ern­ments--both PNM and UNC alike--have main­tained with Venezuela’s jun­ta-backed, so­cial­ist regime. The Prime Min­is­ter has ra­tio­nalised this de­ci­sion as sim­ply be­ing prag­mat­ic. In the words of his for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader, the per­son we have to deal with is, “Who­ev­er an­swers the phone.”

This in­dif­fer­ence ex­plains our vote to ab­stain in a res­o­lu­tion at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (Jan­u­ary, 2019) re­gard­ing the Venezuela cri­sis and the le­git­i­ma­cy of the Maduro pres­i­den­cy. Be­yond that, how­ev­er, our gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions seem to con­tra­dict its stat­ed po­si­tion of neu­tral­i­ty.

Even as Venezuela de­scend­ed in­to chaos, the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion ea­ger­ly en­gaged the Maduro regime in ne­go­ti­a­tions over the Drag­on Gas deal. One could make the ar­gu­ment that Venezuela’s pol­i­tics is an in­ter­nal mat­ter, mak­ing it no con­cern of ours. And, more im­por­tant­ly, that pur­su­ing the deal was in our best in­ter­ests. Fair enough.

But Dr Row­ley made a spec­ta­cle of him­self by cheer­ful­ly danc­ing with Pres­i­dent Maduro at an event to cel­e­brate its sign­ing. For­get the fee­ble ex­pla­na­tion of not want­i­ng to of­fend his host--the PM had no busi­ness be­ing there in the first place! The deal could have been con­clud­ed via min­is­te­r­i­al prox­ies with­out any fan­fare. Op­tics mat­ter…and the PM’s ap­par­ent friend­li­ness with a dic­ta­tor sent the wrong mes­sage to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty.

The reper­cus­sions are such that it fu­els the sus­pi­cion that the gaso­line de­liv­ery to Venezuela was a pre-de­ter­mined arrange­ment. Even if our gov­ern­ment claims hav­ing nei­ther con­trol nor re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for where the ship­ment even­tu­al­ly end­ed up, the re­cent meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Ro­dríguez al­lows for a lot of con­jec­ture. Fur­ther­more, any at­tempt at plau­si­ble de­ni­a­bil­i­ty is dis­pelled by the re­cent rev­e­la­tion that mem­bers of her del­e­ga­tion are em­ployed with PDVSA.

What ex­act­ly was the pur­pose of this meet­ing? And can it be proven that the gaso­line hand­off wasn’t part of it? Again, op­tics mat­ter, and Dr Row­ley’s con­tin­ued use of the “I didn’t know” ex­cuse is hard­ly con­vinc­ing.

Now, ac­cord­ing to Dr An­tho­ny Bryan, a pro­fes­sor of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the US has no jus­ti­fi­able rea­son to im­pose sanc­tions on T&T.

“Where the oil ends up can­not be seen as col­lu­sion or con­nivance by the sell­er. It’s a free mar­ket.” He al­so con­tends that there are still too many un­knowns in this mat­ter. That may be. But even if the US de­cides not to im­pose sanc­tions, they have oth­er op­tions with which to pun­ish us. The Caribbean Basin Trade Ini­tia­tive, the agree­ment that gives T&T ex­ports ac­cess to the US mar­ket at pref­er­en­tial rates, is up for re­new­al in Sep­tem­ber.

Get the pic­ture?

Last week the Prime Min­is­ter la­belled the Op­po­si­tion Leader a “trai­tor”, ac­cus­ing her of act­ing against the best in­ter­ests of our cit­i­zens by cast­ing as­per­sions on the gaso­line deal and invit­ing the US to im­pose sanc­tions.

Con­sid­er­ing Dr Row­ley’s own ac­tions, it sounds like a case of the pot call­ing the ket­tle black. This isn’t about the moral­i­ty of deal­ing with the Maduro regime or its le­gal­i­ty; nor is it that the US has no right to in­ter­fere with the deal­ings of sov­er­eign states.

This is about what T&T stands to gain and lose by ap­peas­ing one over the oth­er. We can’t af­ford to make en­e­mies, es­pe­cial­ly one that can in­flict con­sid­er­able dam­age on our econ­o­my.

Like it or not, our coun­try is in­volved in a very se­ri­ous game. And what’s in our best in­ter­est is to en­sure that we’re play­ing with the win­ning.