OUR Prime Minister congratulated himself and his Government on signing the Dragon gas deal, thanks to a licence issued by the US state authorities providing a waiver of sanctions against our sovereign neighbour, Venezuela.

For T&T, with our declining gas resources and production, the gas from Venezuela and beyond is being sold as the lifesaver of our economy as the Government policy is to continue our dependence on the hydrocarbon industry and multinationals-in the face of climate change mandates to move away from the use of fossil fuels globally.

Very recently, the Biden administration announced a pause in the granting of any new LNG (liquefied natural gas) export licences and projects.

As Bloomberg reports: ‘We will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security and our environment,’ Biden said in a statement. ‘This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time.’

The article continues: ‘The move strikes at the heart of the debate over LNG’s role in the future of energy. While advocates contend it’s crucial for getting developing nations to stop using coal and enabling Europe to power its economy without Russian gas, environmentalists warn that building the enormous infrastructure required to ship LNG ensures it will be burned for generations to come.’

The strategic interest of the world’s biggest superpower (and self-appointed world police) is the maintenance of its dominant hegemonic position over the entire globe- not defeating the ‘existential threat of our time’, as Biden put it.

How to maintain the US as the largest LNG exporter-and US control over LNG production and shipment in other countries (like Venezuela and T&T) to suit its own purposes, like ‘enabling Europe to power its economy without Russian gas’ in its (and NATO’s) proxy war with Russia, the aims of which include reducing or eliminating Russian share in the gas supply market in Europe-is what the US superpower is about. The granting of a licence by the US for T&T to access Venezuela’s gas is part of and fits into US ‘strategic interests’.

While we in T&T may be celebrating that Venezuelan gas may bring our flagging gas economy back to somewhere around where it was a decade ago, the current attempts to sell LNG to European countries means that our country and hydrocarbon industry are again being integrated into the ‘security interests’ of the big power once again.

Rather than the ‘brighter future’ the PM suggests, we are getting into dangerous waters of superpower ‘security interests’ once more.

In World War I, T&T’s oil production was critical to the security interests of Britain and its empire, supplying oil instead of coal for its warships. In World War II, refinery production was critical to the security interests of the US, supplying fuel for its war planes.

Now, our LNG export capability is vital to the security interests of the US and its empire in its contention with Russia and China. Getting further integrated into the interests of the US is a danger to our own sovereignty and independence and becoming trapped as a pawn in superpower rivalry.

Thinking that we, a small country, can somehow play the big powers against one another to suit our interests is to further expose our country and people to the dangers of big power rivalry and warmongering. We will be manipulated into their strategic games, not the other way around.

Clyde Weatherhead