‘I LOVE YOU TOO KAMLA!’

Ke­jan Haynes

Akash Sama­roo

Jesse Ramdeo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is no longer per­sona non gra­ta in Venezuela, with Cara­cas now de­clar­ing her “per­sona gra­ta” fol­low­ing a meet­ing with act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez in New York yes­ter­day.

The meet­ing, held at Venezuela’s Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions on the side­lines of the 81st Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, sig­nalled a ma­jor thaw in re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

In a joint state­ment is­sued af­ter the talks, the lead­ers de­scribed their dis­cus­sions as “the be­gin­ning of a new era in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.”

They reaf­firmed the his­toric ties be­tween Venezuela and Trinidad and To­ba­go and agreed to deep­en co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas in­clud­ing trade, en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, agri­cul­ture, tourism, air con­nec­tiv­i­ty and cul­ture.

Ro­dríguez al­so thanked the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their sol­i­dar­i­ty fol­low­ing the earth­quakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.

To main­tain di­rect en­gage­ment at the high­est lev­el, both lead­ers fur­ther agreed to make of­fi­cial vis­its to Cara­cas and Port-of-Spain.

The state­ment al­so not­ed that the Venezue­lan side “in­di­cat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter was in­deed per­sona gra­ta in Venezuela.”

The an­nounce­ment was read in Par­lia­ment dur­ing de­bate yes­ter­day, draw­ing ap­plause from Gov­ern­ment MPs.

Com­ment­ing on the lat­est de­vel­op­ment, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James de­scribed the com­mu­nique as a pos­i­tive doc­u­ment of good­will and said both coun­tries ap­peared ea­ger to re­set re­la­tions.

“It sounds very pos­i­tive, that’s what I can say. But we’ll have to see how it works out in re­al life,” James said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the sta­tus change, James said the re­al test would be whether both gov­ern­ments could sus­tain the im­proved re­la­tion­ship.

He said it al­so re­mains to be seen how the en­gage­ment will be man­aged, in­clud­ing whether it de­vel­ops be­yond the two lead­ers and ex­tends to min­is­te­r­i­al-lev­el co­op­er­a­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed said the meet­ing sig­nalled con­tin­ued mo­men­tum to­ward re­pair­ing diplo­mat­ic ties. He said it demon­strat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­mit­ment to pur­su­ing what is in the best in­ter­ests of both coun­tries.

Mo­hammed added that the de­c­la­ra­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is now “per­sona gra­ta” un­der­scored the sig­nif­i­cance of the meet­ing and raised ex­pec­ta­tions for tan­gi­ble achieve­ments in the fu­ture.

Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan al­so wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment.

“At least she is no longer per­sona non gra­ta. So the road is clear for fruit­ful dis­cus­sions,” he said.

For­mer For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, who served dur­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first term in of­fice, de­scribed the meet­ing as an im­por­tant step to­ward nor­mal­is­ing re­la­tions.

“I think it is a step in the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of re­la­tions,” Dook­er­an said.

“In that sense, it opens the door for very se­ri­ous and di­rect dis­cus­sions on our eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the en­er­gy sec­tor and oth­er ar­eas, so it’s a good move.”

Dook­er­an said the long-term val­ue of im­proved ties would large­ly de­pend on ne­go­ti­a­tions con­cern­ing en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment in Venezuela and what ben­e­fits Trinidad and To­ba­go could ul­ti­mate­ly de­rive.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that any gains would not be im­me­di­ate and not­ed that Venezuela’s en­er­gy prospects con­tin­ue to be in­flu­enced by wider in­ter­na­tion­al dy­nam­ics, in­clud­ing the po­si­tions of ma­jor glob­al pow­ers.

Browne wel­comes thaw but is­sues cau­tion

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne wel­comed the lift­ing of the per­sona non gra­ta des­ig­na­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a re­turn to the good-neigh­bourly re­la­tions that pre­vi­ous­ly ex­ist­ed be­tween the two coun­tries.

“We in the PNM al­ways wish the best for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Browne said.

He not­ed that the Op­po­si­tion had called a week ear­li­er for the des­ig­na­tion against Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be re­moved and said any pos­i­tive progress in re­la­tions with Venezuela should be wel­comed.

How­ev­er, Browne crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s ear­li­er ap­proach to Venezuela, ar­gu­ing that the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in re­la­tions could not sim­ply be for­got­ten.

“We hope and pray that there will be no re­turn to the mega­phone so­cial me­dia hos­til­i­ty and ag­gres­sion that sup­port­ers of the UNC were prais­ing and de­fend­ing for well over a year,” he said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s meet­ing with Ro­dríguez comes near­ly a year af­ter Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly de­clared her per­sona non gra­ta in Oc­to­ber 2025 amid a sharp de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

Ear­li­er this month, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was look­ing for­ward to meet­ing Ro­dríguez in New York and stressed that she har­boured no ill will to­ward the Venezue­lan leader.

Kam­la-Venezuela re­la­tion­ship time­line

June 2025: Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that “T&T ter­ri­to­ry is off lim­its” and sup­port­ed the use of force against unau­tho­rised ves­sels.

Sep­tem­ber 2025: She backed US mil­i­tary ac­tion against al­leged drug traf­fick­ers op­er­at­ing in the Caribbean, say­ing the US should “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.”

Oc­to­ber 2025: Venezuela sus­pend­ed en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion with Trinidad and To­ba­go and de­clared Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta.

Sep­tem­ber 2026: Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to meet Ro­dríguez in New York.

Sep­tem­ber 23, 2026: The two lead­ers met and agreed to a “new era” in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions. Venezuela al­so con­firmed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is now per­sona gra­ta.