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Raphael John-Lall

Amid es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, econ­o­mists are di­vid­ed over whether the loom­ing threat of mil­i­tary con­flict will rat­tle glob­al oil mar­kets—and what it could mean for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Venezuela, home to the world’s largest crude re­serves, has for­mal­ly alert­ed the Or­ga­ni­a­tion of the Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries (OPEC) that the US is at­tempt­ing to seize its oil re­sources amid ris­ing po­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary pres­sure. Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez said Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro sent a let­ter warn­ing that Wash­ing­ton’s ac­tions “en­dan­ger the bal­ance of the glob­al en­er­gy mar­ket” and stressed that Venezuela will de­fend its sov­er­eign en­er­gy as­sets “at all costs.”