Kamla Calls on PM Rowley to Clear the Air as T&T Faces US Sanctions

Leader of the Opposition, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, MP,

It is with serious alarm that I note a report in today’s Trinidad Guardian about the United States probing our country over a Trinidad &Tobago fuel shipment linked to Venezuela. If true, our country’s very economic survival is at stake. This since, as our longstanding and greatest global ally, any such rift could gravely damage our very beneficial trade, national security and foreign relations with the United States.

Since January 2019, Venezuela’s Government under President Nicolas Maduro has been deemed illegal, brutal and corrupt by the US. The US and 50 other countries have instead recognized the Venezuelan Opposition Leader, Juan Guaido, as the country’s legitimate President. Further, the United States has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, and last month charged Maduro and other senior Government officials with “narco-terrorism”.
Under Maduro, Venezuela has essentially collapsed into a failed State, and is in the throes of a very serious humanitarian and food crisis. This has caused thousands of Venezuelan refugees to flock to our shores since last year. The Rowley Government, however, has openly supported Maduro’s globally denounced regime.

In January 2019, Rowley even got into a very public row with the US Ambassador to Trinidad &Tobago, Joseph Modello, when he said Rowley’s continued recognition of Maduro’s regime was “deeply concerning”. Now, the alleged illegitimate actions of the Rowley regime in their ongoing, questionable and dangerous support of Maduro could cause the US to impose costly and detrimental sanctions for Trinidad & Tobago.

This is in regard to a controversial shipment of gas fuel from the State’s Paria Fuel Trading Company, which left Trinidad &Tobago’s shores on April 21, 2020 for Aruba. Global reports have indicated that this fuel shipment may have eventually been sent to Venezuela. According to the Guardian report, both the US Embassy’s Public Affairs Section and a State Department Representative have confirmed that the US Government:

• Is aware of these damning reports has warned other nations against assisting embattled
• Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro and his regime.
• Has served notice to foreign institutions that they will face sanctions for being involved in facilitating illegitimate transactions that benefit Nicolas Maduro and his corrupt network
• Has stated that it does not matter how the transactions with
• Venezuela are conducted, whether using currency or in-kind exchanges
• Nor does the US care about whether these transactions are otherwise legal under another country’s laws
• Is now probing T&T’s possible violation of the sanctions that the US has imposed against Venezuela
• Notes that if T&T is found to have assisted Venezuela in getting fuel, it could open our country up to US sanctions.

The Guardian further notes that Rowley and his Energy, National Security and Communication Ministers, Franklin Khan, Stuart Young and Donna Cox, respectively, have consistently refused to answer their questions as to whether:

• T&T is facilitating fuel shipments to Venezuela
• this deal was discussed during the visit with Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodriguez last month (where they opened up the locked borders) PDVSA head Juan Santana also at this meeting

Several newspaper reports (2019) have recorded my public condemnation of Rowley for his dangerous stance against the US. I’ve also consistently warned that any fallout with the US, and resultant sanctions, can seriously damage T&T in the following ways:

• There are more than 200,000 Trinidad and Tobago citizens who hold United States visas which can be seriously impacted
• This will gravely affect their ability to visit the US for studying, tourism, cultural and trade related activities
• The US has a large TT Diaspora who can similarly be affected negatively by being unable to move freely between the countries
• 70% of all our food is imported from the US at an annual cost of over US$1 billion (TT$7 billion)
• Any US sanctions, especially in a post Covid-19 world, can therefore deeply affect our already precarious food supply
• The current widespread hunger crisis will therefore seem like a joke
• T&T exports more than US$2.7 billion (TT$18.9 billion) annually to the US in the energy sector
  Sanctions can therefore deplete our already deeply strained revenue stream, potentially causing an irreversible economic crisis
• Sanctions can cause T&T to lose out on its privileged status as the biggest beneficiary of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), under which we receive trade preferences
• These grant duty and quota free access to the US to the tune of US$400 million (TT$2.8 billion) annually.
• Participation in CBI requires, among other things, a waiver of certain WTO (World Trade Organization) conditions
• T&T’s current waiver will expire in 2021 and the US president and Congress have to approve renewing the agreement.
• The CBI also grants TT very important technical advice and cooperation on border control, Customs and Excise and mutual assistance,

Such heavy features of T&T’s national security apparatus can therefore be lost, causing our crime ridden country to suffer even more
I am therefore calling on Rowley to come clean and tell this country the true state of this possibly illegitimate fuel shipment. His ongoing reckless, dangerous and questionable governance has truly led to our beloved nation’s destruction in every possible way. It must no longer be tolerated, for Trinidad &Tobago’s very survival is now at stake.