Venezuela’s government has escalated its dispute with Trinidad and Tobago by declaring Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar persona non grata and suspending major energy cooperation, deepening regional tensions tied to recent U.S. military activity in the southern Caribbean.
National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said, “It is a matter of honor, dignity, morality, expression, sovereignty, and Venezuelan independence to declare this woman, who crawls like a worm, persona non grata to this Republic, which is the cradle of liberators, which is the cradle of free men and women.”
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The move by Venezuela’s National Assembly marks a sharp diplomatic rupture after Persad-Bissessar publicly backed U.S. naval operations that Caracas says have violated the region’s sovereignty. Venezuelan authorities have characterized the Trinidadian government’s receptiveness to U.S. forces as hostile and said it undermines efforts to keep the Caribbean a zone of peace.
State officials in Caracas also moved to suspend energy-sector agreements with Trinidad and Tobago, including joint natural-gas projects, a decision Venezuela framed as a response to Port-of-Spain’s cooperation with U.S. military forces. The suspension threatens already complex ties between the two energy-dependent neighbors and raises questions about supply and commercial arrangements that were years in negotiation.
The diplomatic confrontation follows a string of U.S. military operations in regional waters that Washington says target drug-smuggling networks. U.S. defence officials have reported multiple strikes against vessels they say were carrying narcotics, and independent reporting places the death toll from those operations at dozens of people across strikes in Caribbean and Pacific waters. Critics in the region and international legal experts have questioned the legality and transparency of unilateral military strikes in international waters, calling for clearer evidence and multilateral coordination.
