The jun­ta which sup­ports Nico­las Maduro has shown great sol­i­dar­i­ty and re­sis­tance in the face of pres­sure of mil­i­tary might, diplo­mat­ic per­sua­sion, in­duce­ments and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions from the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion. Even a US$50 mil­lion boun­ty on Maduro’s head has yield­ed no at­tempts on his life, no be­tray­als so far, no signs of cracks at the top, nor like­li­hood of a han­dover of Maduro, nor his vol­un­tary sur­ren­der. The es­ca­la­tion to max­i­mum pres­sure by the US, in­clud­ing per­son­al sanc­tions against Maduro, his fam­i­ly and oth­ers close to him, and the seizure of an oil tanker car­ry­ing Venezue­lan crude to cut off rev­enue, is peak­ing to force com­bus­tion in­ter­nal­ly and to crack the will to re­sis­tance of the Venezue­lan pow­er elite.

Maria Macha­do, the favourite Op­po­si­tion Leader, and a lynch pin in any tran­si­tion arrange­ments, who was liv­ing and hid­ing in Venezuela, ac­cord­ing to the sto­ry be­ing told, dis­guised her way out and braved hard­ship on the open sea to make it to Puer­to Ri­co and then to Oslo, to give a one-hour in­ter­view ex­clu­sive­ly to the BBC, a day af­ter her daugh­ter re­ceived the No­bel Peace prize on her be­half and spo­ken her moth­er’s words to the world. Two thou­sand of her sup­port­ers re­main im­pris­oned in Venezuela.

Macha­do was not al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in the 2024 elec­tion. Ed­mun­do Gon­za­les Ur­ru­tia took her place hur­ried­ly as op­po­si­tion leader when she was de­barred by the Venezue­lan court from con­test­ing elec­tion. In that elec­tion, Op­po­si­tion tal­ly sheets showed an over­whelm­ing vic­to­ry for the Op­po­si­tion. Since the an­nounce­ment of vic­to­ry for Maduro on elec­tion night by the Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, all of whose mem­bers have since been sanc­tioned by the US, no tal­ly sheet has ever been pro­duced by the com­mis­sion.

The Oslo con­nec­tion be­tween the award of the No­bel Peace Prize in 2025 and the 2024 elec­tion in Venezuela must be un­der­stood against the back­ground of the Bar­ba­dos Ac­cord, which was signed in Bridgetown by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Maduro’s par­ty and sev­er­al op­po­si­tion par­ties in Venezuela. That agree­ment cov­ered con­di­tions for free and fair elec­tions in Venezuela, which were all vi­o­lat­ed by Maduro in the run-up to the elec­tion. This was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by his threats and ac­tions to in­vade Guyana and to lay claim to the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, a mat­ter pend­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al court.

Get­ting to the Bar­ba­dos Ac­cord was an ini­tia­tive tak­en by the Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment, sup­port­ed by the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment (all ne­go­ti­a­tions took place in Mex­i­co), to find a route to free and fair elec­tions, restora­tion of democ­ra­cy and gov­ern­ment le­git­i­ma­cy in Venezuela. It did not work out as in­tend­ed.

West­ern hemi­sphere coun­tries could have ex­ert­ed pres­sure on the Elec­toral Com­mis­sion to pro­vide the of­fi­cial tal­ly sheets on the dis­put­ed 2024 elec­tion through the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States, but they did not. Cari­com coun­tries could not find con­sen­sus on this sim­ple mat­ter of call­ing for the of­fi­cial tal­ly sheets to be pro­duced. Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­der the Dr Kei­th Row­ley gov­ern­ment, was a no-show for the vote. Some coun­tries ab­stained. Some vot­ed for and oth­ers against. Cari­com has 14 mem­ber states in the OAS. Their fail­ure to de­mand trans­par­ent re­sults in this in­stance, con­trary to their po­si­tion on Guyana in 2020, was an er­ror which cost Cari­com its moral au­thor­i­ty and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­flu­ence the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion on Venezuela. When the heat was turned up on Maduro by Pres­i­dent Trump, their stand on the prin­ci­ples of sov­er­eign­ty and zone of peace rang hol­low.

It is against this back­ground that the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment took their po­si­tion to sup­port mil­i­tary pres­sure against Maduro, re­in­forc­ing her strong stand against a Maduro dic­ta­tor­ship dur­ing most of her decade-long Op­po­si­tion years.

Per­ti­nent ques­tions are whether T&T, un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has gone too far now in mil­i­tary align­ment and whether T&T can have any in­flu­ence in the US/Venezuela con­flict? Our Prime Min­is­ter has not on­ly aligned with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in this con­flict be­cause she sup­ports the war on drugs and in­ter­na­tion­al nar­co-car­tels and ter­ror­ists and has a cri­sis pro­por­tion prob­lem with crime na­tion­al­ly. But she has made our air­ports avail­able to the US mil­i­tary and may end up ex­ceed­ing the lim­its of the SO­FA agree­ment.

A small coun­try caught in the mid­dle by ge­og­ra­phy, en­er­gy agree­ments and pub­licly ar­tic­u­lat­ed sur­ren­der of neu­tral­i­ty, may be able to make a dif­fer­ence in peace but not in war.

So, a lot de­pends on whether Trump goes for a mil­i­tary so­lu­tion or a ne­go­ti­at­ed res­o­lu­tion. In a mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion, like­ly to be met with wide­spread con­dem­na­tion in the US and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the fall-out would be se­vere and the ra­dius of im­pact will be wide. T&T, by sheer prox­im­i­ty, will be high­ly af­fect­ed and may end up as well, with both mil­i­tary and le­gal ex­po­sure. In the streets and homes of T&T, there is anx­i­ety about war and its im­pact here.

In a ne­go­ti­at­ed res­o­lu­tion, for a peace­ful out­come, T&T can have some val­ue. Even though this coun­try’s in­flu­ence is lim­it­ed, it is not al­to­geth­er neg­li­gi­ble.

With Venezuela, in a ne­go­ti­a­tion sit­u­a­tion, notwith­stand­ing bad blood, T&T may be able to help with de-es­ca­la­tion by of­fer­ing US-backed en­er­gy de­vel­op­ment as an in­cen­tive to move things for­ward. The ques­tion will be how much Maduro ar­chi­tec­ture re­mains in­tact, and the na­ture and terms of a ne­go­ti­at­ed agree­ment with the US and how much re­sent­ment to T&T per­sists. The mil­i­tary in Venezuela would not be eas­i­ly side­lined. And a clean tran­si­tion to Op­po­si­tion lead­er­ship seems un­like­ly.

With Cari­com, as long as war and a mil­i­tary at­tack are off the ta­ble, T&T, in spite of cur­rent rifts, may be able to play a uni­fy­ing role against mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion and for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion. Cari­com’s uni­fied co­her­ence can still be of im­mense val­ue.

So, dam­age with both Venezuela and Cari­com, notwith­stand­ing ag­gres­sive ut­ter­ances and threats, has the best chance of be­ing re­paired in a con­text of peace­ful res­o­lu­tion.

But it all de­pends on whether Pres­i­dent Trump choos­es to talk or to shoot. T&T has noth­ing to gain from a shootout. Trinidad and To­ba­go first.