Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro has ordered the immediate suspension of a major natural-gas agreement with Trinidad and Tobago, accusing the Caribbean nation of aligning itself with the United States after it received a U.S. warship to conduct military drills.
Maduro said he approved "the immediate suspension of all effects of the energy agreement and everything agreed on in that matter," citing the arrival of the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely in Port of Spain for joint military exercises.
Maduro described the deployment as a "direct threat," saying he was acting under his authority to respond, as Venezuela's local Efecto Cotuyo reported. He also claimed Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had turned her country "into an aircraft carrier of the American empire against Venezuela," adding that Trinidad had "run out" of gas before Venezuela agreed to supply it under the deal.
Persad-Bissessar rejected the accusations and denied that her government was vulnerable to pressure from Caracas, as reported by Al Jazeera. "Our future does not depend on Venezuela and never has," she said, adding that Trinidad is moving away from reliance on the long-delayed Dragon offshore gasfield and that her country is "not susceptible to any blackmail from the Venezuelans for political support."
The USS Gravely's arrival comes amid a U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean. Since September, the Trump administration has launched 10 strikes on vessels it says were carrying drugs, killing at least 43 people. The Pentagon has deployed multiple warships, drones, fighter jets and a submarine to the region, and has announced the imminent arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier.
The suspension of gas by Venezuela disrupts bilateral energy cooperation begun in 2015 and renewed earlier this year. The agreement included joint development of the Dragon gasfield, which holds an estimated 119 billion cubic meters of gas. U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have slowed the project, while a separate cross-border field, Manatee, is being developed on the Trinidad side with authorization from Caracas.
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