PM: Trinidad and Tobago not involved in Venezuela strikes

Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said Trinidad and To­ba­go played no role in any Unit­ed States mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in Venezuela, fol­low­ing claims by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump that the ac­tion led to the cap­ture of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

The Unit­ed States launched a se­ries of large-scale mil­i­tary strikes on Venezuela in the ear­ly hours of to­day, Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 3, 2026, mark­ing a ma­jor es­ca­la­tion in ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries.

Trump an­nounced that Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, were cap­tured dur­ing the op­er­a­tion and flown out of Venezuela.

Re­ports in­di­cate the strikes be­gan around 2:00 a.m. lo­cal time in Cara­cas, with ex­plo­sions and fires re­port­ed at sev­er­al mil­i­tary and in­fra­struc­ture sites, in­clud­ing Fuerte Tiu­na, La Car­lota, and the Port of La Guaira.

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment has since de­clared a State of Emer­gency. Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez said Maduro’s where­abouts are cur­rent­ly un­known and de­mand­ed “proof of life.”

In a post to so­cial me­dia at 5:44 a.m. to­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Ear­li­er this morn­ing, Sat­ur­day 3rd Jan­u­ary, 2026, the Unit­ed States com­menced mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of Venezuela. Trinidad and To­ba­go is NOT a par­tic­i­pant in any of these on­go­ing mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions. Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

A sub­se­quent me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs re­peat­ed the same po­si­tion.

Ear­li­er to­day, Trump post­ed on Truth So­cial, say­ing, “The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca has suc­cess­ful­ly car­ried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, cap­tured and flown out of the Coun­try. This op­er­a­tion was done in con­junc­tion with U.S. Law En­force­ment. De­tails to fol­low. There will be a News Con­fer­ence to­day at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-La­go. Thank you for your at­ten­tion to this mat­ter! Pres­i­dent DON­ALD J. TRUMP.”

Mean­while, Cari­com said a con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment met this morn­ing fol­low­ing re­ports of mil­i­tary ac­tion in Venezuela.

In a state­ment, the re­gion­al body said, “Cari­com is ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion which is of grave con­cern to the Re­gion with pos­si­ble im­pli­ca­tions for neigh­bour­ing coun­tries. Cari­com will con­tin­ue to up­date the peo­ple of the Re­gion as more in­for­ma­tion is re­ceived.”

Caribbean Air­lines has al­so is­sued a state­ment as­sur­ing pas­sen­gers that there are, so far, no dis­rup­tions to its flights sched­uled for to­day, Jan­u­ary 3.