POLITICAL analyst Dr Bishnu Ragoonath believes US President-elect Donald Trump’s tenure over the next four years is likely to be “unstable and unpredictable,” particularly as it relates to that country’s relationship with Trinidad and Tobago and the rest of the Caribbean.
Trump, 78, who defeated Democratic contender Kamala Harris in the US general election on November 5, is expected to be formally sworn in as the 47th US president on January 20 inside of the US Capitol’s rotunda in Washington.
The inauguration heralds Trump’s second term as president. He won the US general election in 2016, but lost the presidency to Democratic nominee Joe Biden in November 2020.
In an interview with Newsday, Ragoonath said, “We are into a very unstable, unpredictable period because we do not know exactly what Trump will do and how quickly he will do it.
“People are expecting him from Monday evening to send in a set of executive orders with regard to the deportation issue. But clearly, he has an agenda which many of us can’t seem to come to terms with.”
[caption id="attachment_1133742" align="alignnone" width="900"] Political analyst Dr Bishnu Ragoonath -[/caption]
Regarding TT relations, Ragoonath suggested a Trump presidency could affect this country’s gas deals with neighbouring Venezuela as well as its Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US.
He believes Trump’s decision to appoint Florida senator Marco Rubio as the secretary of state and the latter’s subsequent pronouncement on Venezuela “will suggest that there could be some implications for TT.”
Rubio, at his Senate confirmation hearing on January 15, was quoted in an article as saying the Biden administration “got played” in negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which encouraged him to hold elections in return for granting licenses.
According to the article, Rubio said the elections turned out to be “completely fake,” while Maduro “leveraged migration against us to get those concessions.”
It further quoted him as saying, “Now they have these general licenses where companies like Chevron are actually providing billions of dollars of money into the regime’s coffers and the regime kept none of the promises that they made. So all that needs to be re-explored.”
Chevron is the only US oil producer left in Venezuela. The company was producing about 180,000 barrels per day from Venezuela as of mid-2024.
Ragoonath said, “Clearly, if they are going to go after Venezuela, the question is whether or not Trinidad will be impacted, particularly for our Dragon gas deals that the current government has negotiated with license from the Biden administration. But I don’t know whether that licence will hold under the Trump administration.”
The senior UWI lecturer said the future of the SOFA agreement is also uncertain.
“Although the government has said that SOFA is not significantly different to what it was previously, does that SOFA agreement still give the US the opportunity to use TT as a jumping-off point to Venezuela. That would now dep
