Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy, Ernesto Ke­sar, says this coun­try’s off­shore oil and gas op­er­a­tions will not be af­fect­ed by the pres­ence of Unit­ed States mil­i­tary ves­sels in wa­ters close to Trinidad’s coast.

The US has de­ployed mul­ti­ple war­ships to the south­ern Caribbean as part of its mis­sion against drug traf­fick­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in wa­ters near Venezuela. In­ter­na­tion­al news re­ports in­di­cat­ed that the fleet in­cludes guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­ers, an am­phibi­ous squadron, and a nu­clear-pow­ered sub­ma­rine. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­ready ex­pressed pub­lic sup­port for the de­ploy­ment.

Speak­ing to re­porters in St Madeleine yes­ter­day, Ke­sar de­clined to go in­to de­tail, say­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er au­thor­i­ties were lead­ing dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ment. He not­ed that oil and gas are in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness­es, and the in­dus­try has con­tin­gen­cies even dur­ing pe­ri­ods of ten­sion.