Uncertainty lingers over T&T–Venezuela ties

Raphael John Lall

A month af­ter the cap­ture of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, there is still no in­di­ca­tion of how Venezuela’s act­ing gov­ern­ment in­tends to en­gage with Trinidad and To­ba­go, fol­low­ing a break­down in diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions late last year.

In late 2025, Venezuela sev­ered ties with Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­clared Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta and halt­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions on en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion.

Since the Jan­u­ary 3 US airstrikes and the sub­se­quent cap­ture of Maduro and his wife, Venezuela’s act­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion, led by Del­cy Ro­dríguez, has re­mained pub­licly silent on its fu­ture re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go. There has been no in­di­ca­tion on whether diplo­mat­ic ties will be re­stored or whether stalled en­er­gy dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial gas arrange­ments, could re­sume.

The si­lence comes as Venezuela cau­tious­ly re­opens diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic ties with the Unit­ed States. Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez has met US Chargé d’Af­faires Lau­ra Dogu, while Cara­cas has ap­point­ed Félix Plasen­cia as am­bas­sador to Wash­ing­ton. The US has eased sanc­tions, re­opened Venezue­lan air­space and al­lowed lim­it­ed oil and gas trans­ac­tions.

For­mer hon­orary se­nior fel­low at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, said Venezuela’s lead­er­ship is still nav­i­gat­ing com­plex in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal pres­sures.

“I would think that the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment is still try­ing to de­cide ex­act­ly where it should go. They have just passed the For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment leg­is­la­tion and would need to take oth­er de­ci­sions to go for­ward. There is prob­a­bly quite a bit of dis­agree­ment among them,” Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia. “So, I would give them more time. Re­mem­ber, the Amer­i­can com­pa­nies are now com­pet­ing for oil and gas, which makes de­ci­sions tougher.”

Venezuela has al­so moved to at­tract pri­vate cap­i­tal. Ro­dríguez re­cent­ly signed leg­is­la­tion grant­i­ng greater au­ton­o­my for pri­vate in­vest­ment in the coun­try’s oil sec­tor. Fol­low­ing that move, OFAC au­tho­rised lim­it­ed sanc­tions re­lief. Venezuela has since ex­port­ed liq­ue­fied pe­tro­le­um gas for the first time, with the ship­ment des­tined for the Unit­ed States. In Jan­u­ary, the US com­plet­ed the first sales of Venezue­lan oil un­der a US$2 bil­lion agree­ment, with rough­ly US$500 mil­lion from ini­tial sales held in ac­counts con­trolled by the US Gov­ern­ment.