Venezuela has accused the government of Trinidad and Tobago of taking part in the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast last week, as Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro continues to reverberate across the region.
In a statement on Monday, the Maduro regime accused Trinidad and Tobago of participating in “the theft of Venezuelan oil, committed by the US administration on 10 December with the assault on a vessel transporting this strategic Venezuelan product”.
US forces intercepted the Skipper tanker near the Venezuelan coast, where it was believed to be carrying nearly 2m barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude – an act the Maduro government described as “piracy, a serious violation of international law and a blatant breach of the principles of free navigation and trade”.
Earlier on Monday, the government of Trinidad and Tobago had announced it would allow the US military access to its airports in the coming weeks following the recent installation of a radar system. The Caribbean nation said the radar was being used to combat local crime and would not serve as a launchpad for attacks on any other country.
The Venezuelan statement, posted on Telegram in the name of the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, accused T&T prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, of turning the Caribbean nation “into an aircraft carrier of the American empire against Venezuela” in an “act of vassalage”.
Without specifying what role T&T was alleged to have played in the oil tanker seizure, the Maduro regime announced the immediate termination of any “agreement, contract or negotiation” on natural gas supply between the two countries.
In October, the US granted T&T permission to negotiate a gas deal with Venezuela without facing US sanctions. The two countries have long discussed developing the Dragon field, in Venezuelan waters near Tobago, which holds an estimated 4.2tn cubic feet of gas.
A few days later, however, Maduro for the first time ordered the “immediate suspension” of the deal when a US warship docked in Trinidad’s capital.
In Monday’s statement, the Maduro regime said Persad-Bissessar “has revealed a hostile agenda against Venezuela since taking office, including the installation of US military radars to target vessels transporting Venezuelan oil … Venezuela demands respect! And it will not allow any colonial entity or its vassals to threaten the country’s sacred sovereignty and its right to development.”
Persad-Bissessar has not yet addressed Venezuela’s latest move, but during the previous dispute she said the country’s future “does not depend on Venezuela and never has”.
Earlier on Monday, T&T announced that the US would use its airports for activities “logistical in nature, facilitating supply replenishment and routine personnel rotations”, according to a statement from its foreign ministry. It did not provide further details.
Domestic critics of the T&T government had already warned that the country risked being drawn into Trump’s campaign against Maduro. Amery Browne, an opposition senator and T&T’s former foreign minister, accused the government on Monday of being deceptive in its announcement.
Browne said that T&T has become “complicit facilitators of extrajudicial killings, cross-border tension and belligerence”. He added: “There is nothing routine about this. It has nothing to do with the usual cooperation and friendly collaborations that we have enjoyed with the US and all of our neighbours for decades.”
Persad-Bissessar has praised US strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific that have killed at least 87 people, including several Trinidadian citizens.
She initially said a US C-17 aircraft that landed in Tobago was carrying marines to assist with a road construction project. But after images of the radar installation emerged, she admitted at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar unit – believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, which the US defence company Northrop Grumman says is used for air surveillance, air defence and counter-fire.
Only seven miles (11km) separate Venezuela from the twin-island nation at their closest point.
US lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific and recently announced a congressional review.
