KAMLA & DELCY TURN NEW LEAF

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A new era in Trinidad and To­ba­go-Venezuela re­la­tions is be­ing ush­ered in fol­low­ing the de­vel­op­ment of a roadmap aimed at strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion in key ar­eas rang­ing from en­er­gy and agri­cul­ture to se­cu­ri­ty, which is to be led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

The ini­tia­tive emerged af­ter For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and his Venezue­lan coun­ter­part, Min­istry of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Félix Plasen­cia, met in Cara­cas yes­ter­day and agreed on a work agen­da to guide fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two coun­tries.

The new phase of re­la­tions to be led by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez will be ground­ed in “mu­tu­al re­spect, un­der­stand­ing and good neigh­bourli­ness,” ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.

Sobers was ac­com­pa­nied by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and Head of the For­eign Ser­vice Ran­dall Karim, of­fi­cials from the Min­istry’s Amer­i­c­as Di­vi­sion and the De­fence At­taché at T&T’s Em­bassy in Cara­cas.

The del­e­ga­tion de­part­ed Trinidad at about 8.15 am and re­turned short­ly af­ter 7 pm yes­ter­day.

Up­on ar­rival at Simón Bolí­var In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the del­e­ga­tion was wel­comed by of­fi­cials from T&T’s Em­bassy in Cara­cas and se­nior Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives be­fore pro­ceed­ing to Casa Amar­il­la, the head­quar­ters of Venezuela’s Min­istry of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade.

In a state­ment, the min­istry said the vis­it un­der­scored T&T’s com­mit­ment to ac­tive diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and con­struc­tive di­a­logue with its near­est South Amer­i­can neigh­bour.

It said dis­cus­sions fo­cused on ex­pand­ing trade and eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, agri­cul­ture and fish­eries, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, mar­itime and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, im­mi­gra­tion, and en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment for the ben­e­fit of both coun­tries.

The T&T del­e­ga­tion al­so de­liv­ered three tonnes of med­ical sup­plies and hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid col­lect­ed by the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in T&T to as­sist vic­tims of the dev­as­tat­ing twin earth­quakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.

The ship­ment was trans­port­ed by Caribbean Air­lines on be­half of the Health Min­istry and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry, and fol­lowed an ear­li­er de­liv­ery of re­lief sup­plies in Ju­ly.

Fol­low­ing the one-day vis­it, both gov­ern­ments is­sued a joint state­ment de­scrib­ing the en­gage­ment as the start of a new chap­ter in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

“The Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela and the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go wel­come the vis­it of the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Ho­n­ourable Sean Sobers, whose vis­it marks a new chap­ter in diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries,” the state­ment said.

It added that the for­eign min­is­ters held a “pro­duc­tive meet­ing” and de­signed a work agen­da to fa­cil­i­tate the be­gin­ning of a new era in re­la­tions be­tween the two na­tions.

The state­ment said the agen­da, to be led by Ro­dríguez and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, would serve as “a roadmap for height­ened co­op­er­a­tion” in sev­er­al pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, in­clud­ing trade, en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, cul­ture and col­lec­tive se­cu­ri­ty.

The state­ment said the roadmap aims to deep­en com­mer­cial ties, sup­port eco­nom­ic growth, strength­en food se­cu­ri­ty, pro­mote en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the Caribbean, en­cour­age greater cul­tur­al in­te­gra­tion and en­hance co­op­er­a­tion on se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

Venezuela al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed by T&T fol­low­ing the earth­quakes.

Both gov­ern­ments reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing per­ma­nent chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to ad­vance the agreed agen­da, while ad­her­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al law and pro­mot­ing the eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of both peo­ples.

As part of the vis­it, Sobers pre­sent­ed diplo­mat­ic gifts to Plasen­cia, in­clud­ing a paint­ing de­pict­ing the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and a se­lec­tion of lo­cal­ly craft­ed ar­ti­san choco­lates.

Al­so at­tend­ing the meet­ing were Venezuela’s First Vice Min­is­ter Oliv­er Blan­co, Vice Min­is­ter for the Caribbean Raúl Li Causi, Vice Min­is­ter of In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Marym­na Saadtjian and Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Ál­varo En­rique Sánchez Cordero.

The min­istry’s state­ment did not in­di­cate whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mains sub­ject to the “per­sona non gra­ta” des­ig­na­tion im­posed by Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly dur­ing her 2025 dis­pute with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties.

Sobers did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on how he would char­ac­terise the vis­it or whether he con­sid­ered it suc­cess­ful up to press time. He al­so did not re­spond to queries on which ar­eas achieved the great­est progress, whether Venezuela sought any con­di­tions for re­newed en­gage­ment, or whether dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed pos­si­ble vis­its by Per­sad-Bisses­sar or En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to Venezuela. Ques­tions on whether Sobers ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion for Ro­dríguez to vis­it T&T al­so went unan­swered.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so did not re­spond to ques­tions re­gard­ing the min­istry’s state­ment, her ex­pec­ta­tions for fu­ture en­gage­ment with Venezuela or whether she in­tends to vis­it Cara­cas.

Mooni­lal al­so did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment on the sig­nif­i­cance of Sobers’ vis­it, its im­pli­ca­tions for T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor or the Prime Min­is­ter’s role in im­prov­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

The vis­it has been hailed by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials as the re­open­ing of chan­nels be­tween the two coun­tries fol­low­ing a pe­ri­od of strained re­la­tions linked to ten­sions be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezue­lan of­fi­cials dur­ing the US-led Caribbean counter-car­tel mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion con­duct­ed be­tween Au­gust 2025 and ear­ly 2026.

Re­la­tions ap­peared to im­prove fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary cap­ture of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and First La­dy Cil­ia Flo­res dur­ing a US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Cara­cas and T&T’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to Venezuela in Ju­ly. Sub­se­quent ex­changes be­tween Ro­dríguez and Per­sad-Bisses­sar were no­tably cor­dial.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Stu­art Young has crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as the “high­ly tout­ed” vis­it by Sobers to Cara­cas yes­ter­day, not­ing that the trip took 16 months to ma­te­ri­alise.

“And not sur­pris­ing­ly, Sobers and the UNC spent the day push­ing out so­cial me­dia pub­lic re­la­tions posts about his use of a CAL 737 jet to fly to Cara­cas. So far, it has been all spin and paid so­cial me­dia cov­er­age with no sub­stance. He should have just tak­en a self­ie,” Young said.

Young ar­gued that the sig­nif­i­cance of the vis­it was not on­ly who the T&T del­e­ga­tion met with, but al­so who they did not meet.

“Apart from whom the team met with, in par­tic­u­lar, it’s who they didn’t meet with,” he said, in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to Venezue­lan in­ter­im Pres­i­dent Ro­dríguez be­ing ab­sent from the meet­ing.

He added: “It would be naive and fool­ish for this UNC Gov­ern­ment to be­lieve that our neigh­bours have for­got­ten Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s vi­cious at­tacks on act­ing Pres­i­dent Ro­dríguez from 2018 to 2026. There are con­se­quences for the lack of diplo­ma­cy and the spew­ing of hate­ful words in and out of Par­lia­ment by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er UNC mem­bers.”

Young al­so sug­gest­ed there may be ten­sions with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy port­fo­lio.

“It’s al­so clear that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal, who was ab­sent from the Trinidad and To­ba­go team, is be­ing un­der­mined and side­lined and may soon be re­moved,” he said.

Mean­while, PNM Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne not­ed that Ro­dríguez paid a state vis­it to Grena­da a few months ago and re­cent­ly host­ed Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley on a state vis­it.

Browne said: “It’s telling and un­for­tu­nate that Venezuela’s clos­est Caribbean neigh­bour, Trinidad and To­ba­go, with far more at stake, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing its en­er­gy sec­tor re­quire­ments, finds it­self at a sig­nif­i­cant strate­gic dis­ad­van­tage, rep­re­sent­ed mere­ly at the min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el and try­ing to catch up in an are­na in which we were once po­si­tioned as lead­ers.”