Caracas threatens retaliation against Trinidad as U.S. military buildup nearby grows
As the United States expands what is already the largest military deployment the Caribbean has seen in decades, Venezuela’s socialist regime is warning that it could retaliate against Trinidad and Tobago if the island nation assists Washington in any attack on Venezuelan territory.
In a video message Monday night, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López cautioned Port of Spain against participating in what he called U.S.-led “plans” to stage a provocation against Caracas.
“We have learned of a major exercise to be carried out in Trinidad and Tobago — just a few miles from our national territory,” Padrino said. “Make no mistake by inventing false positives or violating our national sovereignty. We are called to defend our homeland. We will remain calm and vigilant. But make no mistake concerning Venezuela.”
A few hours later, the Maduro regime announced the suspension of a bilateral agreement for a joint natural gas project between the two nations, claiming that Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had threatened to turn her country into Washington’s “aircraft carrier” against Venezuela.
“Everything is suspended,” strongman Nicolás Maduro declared, saying he had approved a proposal from the Ministry of Hydrocarbons in response to the arrival of a U.S. Navy destroyer in Trinidad and Tobago for joint military exercises.
Maduro said the agreement — signed “with great enthusiasm years ago for the development of shared gas blocks” — had been sustained as a “Bolivarian display of brotherhood and solidarity” with a neighbor that had “run out of gas.”
“But faced with the prime minister’s threat to turn Trinidad and Tobago into the aircraft carrier of the U.S. empire against Venezuela and South America, there is only one alternative,” Maduro said, accusing Persad-Bissessar of acting as a “promoter of war.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s Foreign Ministry rejected those claims Monday, saying the U.S. Navy drills now under way on its territory are focused on counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea and are not aimed at Venezuela.
The latest escalation followed a statement Sunday from Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who accused Washington and Trinidad and Tobago of coordinating military exercises intended to provoke an armed confrontation in the Caribbean. She said her government’s arrest of alleged CIA-linked “mercenaries” exposed a “false-flag operation” planned from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago “to generate a full-scale military confrontation against Venezuela.”
The accusations come amid rapidly worsening U.S.-Venezuela relations and a major U.S. military buildup launched by President Donald Trump to combat drug cartels. The administration has signaled it could authorize ground incursions into Venezuelan territory to target the so-called Cartel de los Soles — a narco-trafficking organization the U.S. claims is led by Maduro himself.
Caracas has described the U.S.-backed drills in Trinidad and Tobago as being conducted “under the coordination, financing, and control” of the U.S. Southern Command and calling them “a hostile provocation and a grave threat to Caribbean peace.”
The buildup continues to expand. Over the past two months, the Pentagon has deployed close to 10,000 troops — most of them based in Puerto Rico — along with a contingent of Marines aboard amphibious assault ships. The U.S. Navy has positioned at least 10 warships and a submarine in the Caribbean as part of the expanded operation, and last week Trump ordered the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, into the region.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 9:56 AM.
