Its president Venezuela Nicolas Maduro suspended the bilateral agreement with the Trinidad and Tobago for the exploitation of a natural gas field, in retaliation for the sinking of an American destroyer in the small Caribbean archipelago.

“Faced with the Prime Minister’s threats (Kamla Persad-Bisesar) to turn Trinidad and Tobago into an aircraft carrier of the American empire against Venezuela (…) I approved the temporary measure of immediate suspension of the energy agreement”which concerns, among other things, natural gas, Maduro announced in a speech broadcast on state television.

Despite the oil embargo against Caracas, in early October the US had given the “green light” to Trinidad and Tobago for the exploitation of the large Dragon natural gas field – which is estimated to be 120 billion cubic meters – located on the sea border with Venezuela.

The Trinidad and Tobago is the second largest natural gas producer in the Caribbean and neighbors the Venezuela. 20% of the population lives below the poverty line and many were hoping for future income from the joint exploitation of this particular natural gas field.

The suspension of the bilateral agreement was proposed yesterday Monday by the vice president of Venezuela Delsey Rodriguezcausing the immediate reaction of his prime minister Trinidad and Tobago. In her telephone communication with the French News Agency (AFP), the Kamla Persad-Bisesar she declared that her country would not yield to “any blackmail from Venezuelans” and will not give up the fight for “the fight against drug cartels”, underlined. “Our future does not depend on Venezuela” and something like this never happened in the past either, he added.

Relations between Venezuela and its small English-speaking neighbor have soured after the Kamla Persad-Bisesar assumed power in Trinidad and Tobago in May 2025. H Persad-Bisesar criticizes the Maduro government and has advocated the deployment of US military power in the Caribbean.

Washington has deployed seven warships to the Caribbean and another to the Gulf of Mexico, officially as part of operations against drug cartels, particularly targeting Venezuela and its president. The destroyer USS Gravely sailed Sunday to Port of Spade and will remain there until Thursday as part of exercises with its armed forces Trinidad and Tobago.

Since the beginning of September, the US has carried out airstrikes against vessels it believes are drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific. To date, ten such blows are known, of which at least 43 people have been killedaccording to an AFP tally based on US government data. One of the strikes, in mid-October, killed two citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, according to their families. The local authorities neither denied nor confirmed it.

Experts have expressed doubts about the legality of strikes in international and foreign territorial waters against suspects who have not been arrested or questioned.