US military<\/a> access to its airports in the coming weeks following the recent installation of a radar system. The Caribbean nation said the radar was being used to combat local crime and would not serve as a launchpad for attacks on any other country.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Venezuelan statement, posted on Telegram in the name of the vice-president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, accused T&T prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, of turning the Caribbean nation \u201cinto an aircraft carrier of the American empire against Venezuela\u201d in an \u201cact of vassalage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without specifying what role T&T was alleged to have played in the oil tanker seizure, the Maduro regime announced the immediate termination of any \u201cagreement, contract or negotiation\u201d on natural gas supply between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, the US granted T&T permission to negotiate a gas deal with Venezuela without facing US sanctions. The two countries have long discussed developing the Dragon field, in Venezuelan waters near Tobago, which holds an estimated 4.2tn cubic feet of gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days later, however, Maduro for the first time ordered the \u201cimmediate suspension\u201d of the deal when a US warship docked in Trinidad\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Monday\u2019s statement, the Maduro regime said Persad-Bissessar \u201chas revealed a hostile agenda against Venezuela since taking office, including the installation of US military radars to target vessels transporting Venezuelan oil \u2026 Venezuela demands respect! And it will not allow any colonial entity or its vassals to threaten the country\u2019s sacred sovereignty and its right to development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Persad-Bissessar has not yet addressed Venezuela\u2019s latest move, but during the previous dispute she said the country\u2019s future \u201cdoes not depend on Venezuela and never has\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier on Monday, T&T announced that the US would use its airports for activities \u201clogistical in nature, facilitating supply replenishment and routine personnel rotations\u201d, according to a statement from its foreign ministry. It did not provide further details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Domestic critics of the T&T government had already warned that the country risked being drawn into Trump\u2019s campaign against Maduro. Amery Browne, an opposition senator and T&T\u2019s former foreign minister, accused the government on Monday of being deceptive in its announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Browne said that T&T has become \u201ccomplicit facilitators of extrajudicial killings, cross-border tension and belligerence\u201d. He added: \u201cThere is nothing routine about this. It has nothing to do with the usual cooperation and friendly collaborations that we have enjoyed with the US and all of our neighbours for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Persad-Bissessar has praised US strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific that have killed at least 87 people, including several Trinidadian citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She initially said a US C-17 aircraft that landed in Tobago was carrying marines to assist with a road construction project. But after images of the radar installation emerged, she admitted at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar unit \u2013 believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN\/TPS-80 G\/ATOR, which the US defence company Northrop Grumman says is used for air surveillance, air defence and counter-fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only seven miles (11km) separate Venezuela from the twin-island nation at their closest point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific and recently announced a congressional review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maduro regime accuses Caribbean nation of participating in \u2018theft of Venezuelan oil\u2019 as tensions mount in region Venezuela has accused the government of Trinidad and Tobago of taking part in the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela\u2019s coast last week, as Donald Trump\u2019s four-month pressure campaign against Nicol\u00e1s Maduro continues to reverberate across the region. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":51253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8888,33625,33622,10442,3172],"class_list":["post-51252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-oil-tanker","tag-tobago","tag-trinidad","tag-us","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51254,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51252\/revisions\/51254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}