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S&P Glob­al Rat­ings has re­vised Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic out­look from sta­ble to neg­a­tive while af­firm­ing its in­vest­ment grade rat­ing at BBB-. The agency warned that per­sis­tent weak­ness­es in pub­lic fi­nances, de­clin­ing en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and ris­ing debt could trig­ger a down­grade with­in the next two years.

S&P said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fis­cal buffers have erod­ed over time de­spite re­peat­ed at­tempts by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my. En­er­gy, though shrink­ing, still con­tributes more than a quar­ter of gov­ern­ment rev­enue and about 80 per cent of ex­ports. With pro­duc­tion stag­nant, S&P ex­pects growth of just one per cent in 2025 and 2026.

The agency point­ed to a loom­ing US$1 bil­lion bond re­pay­ment in 2026 as a ma­jor pres­sure point, not­ing the coun­try’s large sov­er­eign wealth fund re­mains a cush­ion. The Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund, to­geth­er with oth­er state as­sets, equals about half of GDP, lim­it­ing fi­nanc­ing risks in the near term.