Raphael John-Lall

The ar­rival of a busi­ness del­e­ga­tion from Venezuela’s State of Su­cre presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to strength­en eco­nom­ic ties be­tween T&T and the neigh­bour­ing Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, even as geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions have com­pli­cat­ed re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries in re­cent times.

The trade re­la­tion­ship with Su­cre is not new as in 2023, the Busi­ness Guardian re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly that 4,699 tonnes of bulk salt was ex­port­ed from Su­cre to T&T worth US$351,730.

Econ­o­mist and hon­orary se­nior fel­low of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, The UWI, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, told the Busi­ness Guardian that the ge­o­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty of Su­cre to T&T and the close in­ter­ac­tion be­tween their pop­u­la­tions pro­vide a ba­sis for stronger com­mer­cial ties.

“The State of Su­cre is close to T&T and its na­tion­als in­ter­act in­tense­ly with those of this coun­try. They are see­ing many op­por­tu­ni­ties in trade, tourism, in­vest­ment, agri­cul­ture and cul­ture where the two ter­ri­to­ries can ben­e­fit from co­op­er­a­tion.”

Gon­za­les said co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two ter­ri­to­ries could sup­port eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment, with of­fi­cials from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors hav­ing an in­ter­est in pro­mot­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that could ben­e­fit both sides.

Re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Venezuela came un­der strain in Jan­u­ary 2026, fol­low­ing the US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion that re­sult­ed in the cap­ture of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sup­port for US-led re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed re­la­tions be­tween Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas, al­though T&T did not par­tic­i­pate in the op­er­a­tion it­self.

How­ev­er, in Sep­tem­ber 2026, there were signs of a diplo­mat­ic thaw. Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly de­clared, “I love her,” re­fer­ring to Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, be­fore the two lead­ers met in New York on Sep­tem­ber 23, on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. Their meet­ing sig­nalled an ef­fort to im­prove re­la­tions and ex­plore co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas in­clud­ing trade, en­er­gy, tourism and agri­cul­ture.

On Mon­day night, Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T Ál­varo En­rique Sánchez Cordero told Guardian Me­dia that state-owned Pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny PDVSA is in charge of en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions and the busi­ness del­e­ga­tion from Su­cre was in T&T to dis­cuss busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties spe­cif­ic to that state which could in­volve en­er­gy-re­lat­ed ser­vices as well as non-en­er­gy busi­ness­es.

Busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties

Su­cre, lo­cat­ed on Venezuela’s north­ern coast, has an econ­o­my based on fish­ing, agri­cul­ture and tourism. Its pop­u­la­tion is al­most the same size as that of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in T&T, the del­e­ga­tion host­ed a busi­ness round­table at the Hilton Trinidad on Tues­day in part­ner­ship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go En­er­gy Cham­ber.

Dis­cus­sions fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing prac­ti­cal op­por­tu­ni­ties for co­op­er­a­tion in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing trade and com­merce, with an em­pha­sis on mar­ket ac­cess, ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties, busi­ness part­ner­ships and in­vest­ment. Mar­itime con­nec­tiv­i­ty was al­so dis­cussed, in­clud­ing ship­ping links, port ser­vices, lo­gis­tics op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Gon­za­les point­ed to the ex­ist­ing fer­ry ser­vice be­tween T&T and the Venezue­lan com­mer­cial cen­tre of Güiria, al­though he said he was un­sure how fre­quent­ly it op­er­ates. He sug­gest­ed that de­vel­op­ing the fer­ry ser­vice could cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties to sup­port tourism.

En­er­gy could al­so be an area of in­ter­est, giv­en the mar­itime prox­im­i­ty of the two ter­ri­to­ries and the po­ten­tial for fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion in the sec­tor.

Gon­za­les said there could be ad­di­tion­al ar­eas for co­op­er­a­tion that would be­come clear­er as dis­cus­sions progress.

He added that the en­gage­ment with Su­cre should not be in­ter­pret­ed as di­min­ish­ing the role of the Venezue­lan na­tion­al gov­ern­ment in re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

“The meet­ing with Su­cre of­fi­cials does not di­min­ish the role of T&T in Venezue­lan for­eign pol­i­cy,” he said.

He ex­plained that Venezuela’s fed­er­al struc­ture al­lows its states to en­gage in ex­ter­nal dis­cus­sions to pro­mote their de­vel­op­ment, while broad­er mat­ters re­main the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas.

Gon­za­les al­so point­ed to Delta Amacuro, an­oth­er Venezue­lan state close to Trinidad, as a po­ten­tial par­tic­i­pant in fu­ture ef­forts to pro­mote cross-bor­der co­op­er­a­tion.

Fi­nal­ly, he said as Venezuela’s econ­o­my con­tin­ues to see eco­nom­ic growth, com­merce will ex­pand.

Prac­ti­cal busi­ness

The vis­it of a Venezue­lan busi­ness del­e­ga­tion should be viewed as an ef­fort to de­vel­op prac­ti­cal com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties rather than ev­i­dence of a ma­jor break­through in bi­lat­er­al en­er­gy re­la­tions, Venezue­lan en­er­gy an­a­lyst Dr Ein­stein Mil­lán Ar­cia has cau­tioned.

Mil­lán Ar­cia told the Busi­ness Guardian the vis­it ap­peared to be fo­cused on busi­ness match­mak­ing and cul­tur­al en­gage­ment, and should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be linked to the meet­ing be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent in Sep­tem­ber.

The del­e­ga­tion’s en­gage­ments pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plore trade and in­vest­ment links be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Su­cre, but Mil­lán Ar­cia said there was no pub­lic ev­i­dence that the vis­it formed part of a wider plan for re­newed high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment or ne­go­ti­a­tions over cross-bor­der gas sup­plies.

“It looks like a cul­tur­al out­reach that can be in­ter­pret as a prag­mat­ic re­set in Venezuela/T&T re­la­tions, rather than a high-lev­el po­lit­i­cal sig­nalling de­rived from the New York City Del­cy-Kam­la meet­ing.”

Mil­lán Ar­cia de­scribed the del­e­ga­tion as a re­gion­al ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with an agen­da cen­tred on prac­ti­cal busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

He cau­tioned against in­ter­pret­ing the in­volve­ment of the En­er­gy Cham­ber as an in­di­ca­tion that the vis­it would lead to new hy­dro­car­bons agree­ments.

“Part­ner­ing with the En­er­gy Cham­ber makes sense be­cause that body has long ad­vo­cat­ed en­er­gy-sec­tor syn­er­gies and cross-bor­der op­por­tu­ni­ties; but it is not ev­i­dence that the vis­it is, or will lead to­wards hy­dro­car­bons op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

The dis­tinc­tion is sig­nif­i­cant giv­en T&T’s con­tin­u­ing in­ter­est in se­cur­ing nat­ur­al gas sup­plies to sup­port its liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) and petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­tries, as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal en­er­gy ser­vices com­pa­nies.

Mil­lán Ar­cia al­so said Venezuela’s com­mer­cial pri­or­i­ties might not nec­es­sar­i­ly align with T&T’s pre­ferred ap­proach to ac­cess­ing gas re­sources.

“T&T’s in­ter­est is large­ly in­ter­est-dri­ven gas sup­ply for LNG/petro­chem­i­cals, en­er­gy ser­vices ex­ports. Venezuela’s in­ter­est could in­clude ba­si­cal­ly sell­ing gas through the ma­jors and not nec­es­sar­i­ly Trinidad.”

He al­so cau­tioned against as­sum­ing that the vis­it would lead to an­oth­er meet­ing be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez in the com­ing months, or that it rep­re­sent­ed a prepara­to­ry step to­wards a ma­jor en­er­gy agree­ment.

“The Su­cre group vis­it is one Venezue­lan state pur­su­ing con­crete busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties with T&T, en­abled and pub­li­cised by the Em­bassy, at a time when the na­tion­al bi­lat­er­al at­mos­phere is more per­mis­sive and per­me­able.”

He added that the vis­it did not, in it­self, demon­strate that the two coun­tries were mov­ing to­wards a ma­jor cross-bor­der gas agree­ment.

“For T&T, the com­mer­cial val­ue of the del­e­ga­tion’s vis­it will ul­ti­mate­ly de­pend on whether dis­cus­sions trans­late in­to tan­gi­ble trade, in­vest­ment or oth­er busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties. The vis­it of­fers a plat­form for en­gage­ment, but any as­sess­ment of its eco­nom­ic im­pact will re­quire ev­i­dence of con­crete out­comes.”

Venezuela’s econ­o­my

— key in­di­ca­tors

The In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) projects Venezuela’s econ­o­my to grow by 5 per­cent in 2026, one of the high­est in the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion. Month­ly in­fla­tion has slowed in re­cent months, reach­ing 8.4 per cent in Sep­tem­ber.

The Unit­ed States has eased some re­stric­tions on Venezuela’s oil in­dus­try, while the two coun­tries agreed to re­store diplo­mat­ic and con­sular re­la­tions in March 2026. In April, the IMF and World Bank re­sumed en­gage­ment with Venezuela af­ter a sus­pen­sion dat­ing to 2019. Venezuela is al­so seek­ing to re­store ac­cess to In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) fi­nanc­ing, in­clud­ing through ef­forts to clear out­stand­ing ar­rears. These de­vel­op­ments could im­prove prospects for in­vest­ment and eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, al­though ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing re­mains sub­ject to fur­ther steps.