Tobago hotelier and former Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association (THTA) vice-president Carol-Ann Birchwood-James said tourism stakeholders on the island are concerned about the current tension between US and Venezuela and how it would affect the industry,

Birchwood-James spoke with Newsday on September 10, eight days after the US missile strike in the southern Caribbean, which destroyed a pirogue and killed 11 alleged drug traffickers from Venezuela.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said via X (formerly Twitter) that his country had “conducted a lethal strike” on a vessel heading to Trinidad that had earlier departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a “narco-terrorist organisation.”