So Keith Rowley, the Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, has flown off rather suddenly to Washington on an unannounced trip. As to why he is going to Washington at this time and who he is going to meet, is not in the public domain; neither is what he hopes to accomplish while he is there.
While it is very easy to criticize any leader of a democracy for failing to inform his/her people as to why he/she feels that he/she has to travel and not explaining in full what he/she hopes to accomplish by an apparently sudden trip, one of the nice things about a democracy is that we are all free to speculate on any action or actions of our leaders even when (as in this instant case) they choose not to give us any information other than "I am going To X".
But it is fairly easy to "read the tea leaves" as to why the Prime Minister has chosen to travel now and it can be summed up in two words: Dragon Gas.
In order to understand the problem it is necessary to look across the Gulf of Paria and at what is taking place in nearby Venezuela. That country's Supreme Court has recently disqualified the leading (and very popular) opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado. The problem here is that Venezuela's Supreme Court is stuffed with President Maburro's cronies (I refuse to call him Maduro; Maburro suits him much better). Now, Maburro had given an undertaking that the Presidential elections due this year would be free and fair. In return, the United States had lifted some of its sanctions. But Maburro controls the Supreme Court. What he says goes, and, as we say in T&T, who vex 'lorse'! And he doesn't want anybody opposing him who might have the remotest chance of beating him. So it is crystal clear that Venezuela's Supreme Court does whatever he wants.
Now that Ms. Machado has been barred from contesting the elections, it is quite clear that Maburro is not going to trust the Venezuelan electorate and that the Donkey will simply revert to what he has always done: cheating at the elections.
So? How does this affect us in good old T&T? If the USA decides to reimpose sanctions the Dragon Gas deal that Messrs. Rowley &Co. are pinning their hopes on could well be under sanction again. So it makes sense for Dr. Rowley to fly to Washington to try and get the Americans to hold their hands and do nothing that might affect our economy which is presently tanking.
The problem is that Dr. Rowley is publicly on record as effectively being on the Donkey's side. The best that he can hope for therefore is that the Americans say that they won't do anything adverse to T&T's interests and thus will not interfere with our own upcoming elections, which would effectively mean that the Dragon Gas deal will be allowed to go forward. The Americans will look at this and determine what exactly is in their best interests (and not T&T's). What they decide to do will determine whether the Dragon Gas deal will go forward or not.
In the meantime, expect more political machinations on this particular matter - from everybody!
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