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Energy, Security, and Trade Top Rubio's Caribbean Agenda [1]
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Date: 2025-04
Energy security
In a pre-trip press briefing, Claver-Carone highlighted the “historic opportunity for energy security in the Caribbean,” noting the rapid development of Guyana’s oil industry and the expectation that Suriname will soon follow in its neighbor’s footsteps, as well as Trinidad and Tobago’s push to revamp its natural gas industry. He pointed out that several CARICOM countries are former beneficiaries of the now-defunct PetroCaribe agreement, through which they purchased oil from Venezuela with preferential credit arrangements until 2018. He expressed hope that having strong oil and gas producers within CARICOM would foster regional energy self-sufficiency and boost economic development.
Guyana, which is estimated to have the world’s highest crude oil reserves per capita, has been one of the fastest growing economies globally since oil production began in 2019. Suriname is set to begin exploiting its recently discovered deposits of oil in 2028 and natural gas in 2032. Secretary Rubio visited the neighboring countries on March 27. In a joint press conference with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, Rubio referred to Guyana as “one of the most exciting places in the world to be right now” and said that the United States wants “to be a partner” in its “transformative change.” While in Suriname with President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, Rubio highlighted the existing U.S. involvement in the country’s nascent petrochemical industry and promised to promote further investment.
For Trinidad and Tobago, the largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Latin America and the Caribbean, recently installed Prime Minister Stuart Young lobbied to preserve the license granted by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in October 2023 that allows the twin-island nation to extract and export natural gas from Venezuela, its closest neighbor on the South American mainland, in a project expected to come onstream in 2027. In a press conference two days after meeting with Rubio in Jamaica, Young, who is also the energy minister, did not provide guarantees that the OFAC license would be renewed in October 2025—when it is due to expire—but stated he had emphasized its importance to the region’s energy security and received assurances from the secretary of state that “U.S. foreign policy is in no way meant to affect or harm Trinidad and Tobago.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/energy-security-and-trade-top-rubios-caribbean-agenda
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