So Trinidad and Tobago is stuck in the middle of a standoff between the US and Venezuela.

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela are nothing new, but things have been ramping up recently with US President Donald Trump taking aim at drug cartels in the Caribbean. 

The US has carried out at least four strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the waters off Venezuela recently. In September, one of those strikes reportedly killed 11 people. 

The US says these actions are part of a “non-international armed conflict” against nonstate criminal actors.

But Venezuela is accusing Washington of using the drug war as a pretext for aggression and possible regime change. Perhaps in this context, it should come as no surprise that this year’s Nobel Peace Price was recently awarded to Venezuela’s Opposition Leader, Maria Corina Machado. Despite Trump’s heavy lobbying to give himself the prestigious prize.

But I digress… So Venezuela’s President Nicholas Maduro called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, claiming the US is conducting “armed attacks” against a sovereign nation. Venezuelan officials also claim to have uncovered plots to bomb the shuttered US Embassy in Venezuela.

And caught in the middle is Trinidad and Tobago. 

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she is open to allowing US troops access to Trinidadian facilities for regional security purposes. Also, remember that Venezuela has a maritime border dispute with Guyana. Venezuela claims that the entire Essequibo region of Guyana, which just happens to be the oil-rich part, belongs to them.

Maduro said that Persad-Bissessar’s willingness to grant access to the US is like Trinidad declaring war against Venezuela. Remember, Trinidad and Venezuela are only separated by a few miles of water, and there are a lot of Venezuelan migrants in Trinidad, so this is a very sensitive issue.

And that’s the bottom line.