PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis has con­demned crit­ics of the now-col­lapsed Drag­on gas deal, call­ing them “id­iots” and warn­ing that the con­se­quences will af­fect every cit­i­zen—not just the gov­ern­ment.

Den­nis was re­spond­ing to the US gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­voke the li­cence that al­lowed Trinidad and To­ba­go to pur­sue the long-await­ed nat­ur­al gas project with Venezuela. The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion had is­sued the li­cence in 2023, but it was with­drawn on Tues­day amid re­newed US pres­sure on Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Cas­tara on Tues­day night, Den­nis de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the deal and re­ject­ed claims that the process lacked trans­paren­cy.