The in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment has be­come more com­pli­cat­ed. Sev­er­al chal­lenges can have a sig­nif­i­cant in­flu­ence on T&T. The re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the wars in Ukraine and the Mid­dle East in 2022-23 in­creased en­er­gy and petro­chem­i­cal prices on world mar­kets. This im­proved T&T’s pub­lic fi­nances. It did not pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion.

Al­though the wars have con­tin­ued, en­er­gy prices have fall­en to a more nor­mal lev­el. Oth­er ef­fects with in­de­ter­mi­nate or neg­a­tive con­se­quences are now be­com­ing ap­par­ent.

The war in Ukraine is hav­ing a po­lar­is­ing im­pact on world af­fairs. The im­po­si­tion of sanc­tions by US and NA­TO coun­tries on Rus­sia has led to a stronger al­liance be­tween Rus­sia and Chi­na. Sim­i­lar­ly, the emer­gence of Chi­na as a world pow­er has led to ten­sions in Chi­na’s re­la­tion­ship with the USA and its al­lies.

Du­ties, tar­iffs, and non-tar­iff trade bar­ri­ers were im­posed in 2018 dur­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s first term in of­fice. Trump’s sec­ond pres­i­den­tial term is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue the re­ver­sal of the long-stand­ing move­ment to free trade led by the USA. In the process, the lib­er­al world or­der of freer trade ap­pears to be over.

The ex­act shape and tenor of the re­place­ment for the old lib­er­al or­der are un­clear. This will take time, and in the in­ter­ven­ing pe­ri­od, T&T needs to be clear on what will best serve its in­ter­ests in its re­la­tions with the USA and Chi­na. This geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sion will im­pact T&T’s ini­tia­tive to ac­cess Venezue­lan gas.

Those who be­lieve that a Trump pres­i­den­cy will have a more pos­i­tive im­pact should fol­low the com­ments of Chevron’s ex­ec­u­tives. Chevron is one of the largest com­pa­nies in the world and the sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny in the USA by rev­enue. It re­cent­ly an­nounced that it would not ex­pand its in­vest­ment in Venezuela as a two-year OFAC li­cence was not long enough to jus­ti­fy fur­ther in­vest­ment.

This sug­gests that T&T should be cau­tious and do the same. The cur­rent T&T ad­min­is­tra­tion has placed much hope in ac­cess­ing Venezuela’s gas fields. OFAC’s li­cences for the Drag­on Gas field ex­pire in Oc­to­ber 2025. This time frame is too short to achieve any­thing of sub­stance ex­cept to de­ter­mine what the in­com­ing Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion will do.

Minds are more like­ly to be fo­cused on the task of win­ning the next gen­er­al elec­tion than on ad­dress­ing the de­mands of the Venezuela gas project. One hopes that pub­lic con­fi­dence will not be shak­en by the lack of progress in an elec­tion year.

The de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges re­main. What will hap­pen to the wider pol­i­cy is­sues of eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, an age­ing pop­u­la­tion, fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and in­fra­struc­ture main­te­nance? How do we make T&T more com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al­ly? How do we gen­er­ate the nec­es­sary for­eign ex­change to meet our needs? How do we deal with the un­der­ly­ing caus­es of the crime sit­u­a­tion? What are the con­di­tions re­quired to achieve sus­tain­able growth?

Mov­ing away from de­pen­dence on petro­chem­i­cals, gas ex­ports, and the en­er­gy sec­tor de­mands the de­vel­op­ment of dif­fer­ent skills and prod­ucts at every so­ci­etal lev­el. Who will ad­dress these ex­is­ten­tial ques­tions? Rather than the emp­ty plat­form rhetoric of who will pro­tect the trea­sury or who is bet­ter suit­ed to gov­ern, these are se­ri­ous chal­lenges that re­quire a dif­fer­ent lan­guage, mind­set, and ap­proach than cur­rent­ly dis­played on the hus­tings. What is the al­ter­na­tive to Venezuela’s gas fields if this does not ma­te­ri­alise?

The most im­por­tant sin­gle fac­tor in em­bark­ing on the de­vel­op­ment of a coun­try is how to de­vel­op its peo­ple and equip them with the nec­es­sary skills to ad­dress their sit­u­a­tions. We must cre­ate a ris­ing tide that will raise all boats. The an­swer is not sim­ply for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. T&T has had more for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment per capi­ta of pop­u­la­tion than any oth­er Caribbean coun­try dur­ing the pe­ri­od 1960 to 2015. While we could point to en­er­gy sec­tor in­vest­ments and tall build­ings that may have al­tered the coun­try’s phys­i­cal foot­print, it has not trans­formed the coun­try, nor trans­formed cit­i­zens.

Trans­form­ing the coun­try means that its peo­ple must be trans­formed. That re­quires in­puts on many fronts, as a trans­for­ma­tion ex­er­cise is nei­ther sim­ple nor short-term. It can­not be sim­ply left to the process of at­tri­tion, nat­ur­al se­lec­tion, or the pas­sage of time.

Chang­ing peo­ple is a dif­fi­cult un­der­tak­ing. It re­quires a sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach, dis­ci­pline, co­or­di­na­tion, a rig­or­ous ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, and the de­vel­op­ment of tal­ent­ed cit­i­zens. It re­quires ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, cre­at­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment to al­low peo­ple and busi­ness­es to grow and pros­per.

A coun­try of achiev­ers can­not be built on a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment largesse, pub­lic hand­outs, make-work pro­grammes or a bloat­ed pub­lic ser­vice. This struc­ture re­sults from de­pend­ing on en­er­gy sec­tor tax­es for re­dis­tri­b­u­tion. De­spite its stat­ed in­ten­tions, the Gov­ern­ment has nev­er prac­ticed a pol­i­cy of ef­fi­cien­cy or ef­fec­tive­ness in terms of man­ag­ing its op­er­a­tions and pro­cure­ment struc­tures. Too many peo­ple are de­pen­dent on the state for their liveli­hoods, di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly.

A key part of the trans­for­ma­tion process is that the Gov­ern­ment must be­come more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive in the man­age­ment of state re­sources. This is es­pe­cial­ly true in an elec­tion year.

Mar­i­ano Browne is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness.