US President Donald Trump (center) holding a document alongside rightwing Latin American and Caribbean presidents and Kamla Persad-Bissessar (left) holding with pride the pen he used to sign it. Miami, March 7, 2026. Photo: Presidency of Paraguay/EFEE/file photo.
By Wayne Kublalsingh – Aug 27, 2026
By should I bother to waste any elbow grease on this year’s Independence celebrations? Elbow grease to spit and shine up my boots, buckle, buttons, medallions? Why bother to spruce up my mount, my saddle and stirrups, gallop on down to the Savannah for parade? Or for that matter, raise buntings, stand to attention, sing the national anthem, salute the Prime Minister or any member of her government?
Why bother, when I know that the PM has sold our independence to the USA. Peddled away our energy sovereignty to Donald Trump and his Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury. When I know that for the sake of Trump and the US she scuttled our Dragon Gas negotiations. That being declared persona non grata by that nation, neither she nor her ministers sit with Venezuelan energy negotiators. That is not us, but the US and energy corporations like Shell and BP now negotiate with Venezuela, in order to win the gas to support their own interests, not ours, in Trinidad.
Why bother, when we are being led by the nose to host US gas-guzzling corporations without sight of gas pricing. What gas price would Hummingbird AI Holdings be paying for its proposed AI Data center/s? Or the US-based Pinnacle Steel and Vanadium Corporation? And what terms have our formidable energy-czars, Messrs Ramdeen and Moonilal, negotiated with BP, who now controls 100% of Calypso? And what terms for the BP/NGC Cocuina-Manakin cross-border fields? And what terms for any prospective viable Exxon Mobil gas discovery?
Many of our race-based economists and ruling-party sycophants laud these “deals.” But they are whistling in the dark. They have not seen the fine print.
In 2001, the authors of the Master Gas Plan for Trinidad and Tobago, Gaffney, Cline & Associates, called for a “regulatory and control structure” in the gas sector to protect against “collusive behavior (especially in absence of anti-trust legislation).” They warned: “It is evident that this most critical sector of the national economy is highly dependent on the capability and integrity of a handful of industry professionals. This would be a cause for concern in any private sector company and should be of considerable concern to the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.” (Ital Revolution, 2009, Wayne Kublalsingh).
The above statement by Gaffney and Cline described PM Patrick Manning’s modus operandi for our energy industry in Trinidad and Tobago. A closed circle of technocrats, public servants, UWI professionals, a law unto itself, who decided on gas pricing and usage on its own. Unfettered by public scrutiny. They alone knew and controlled fine print.
Now, Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar has gone backwards in time. To the plantation hog-days. Massa gets the shoulder, rump, loin and we are left the gut, foot, tail, snout.
It all began in November 2025, when the US moved its military task force into the Caribbean. Our PM immediately fell into line. The task force was here to provide security for us, she proclaimed. Maduro was a drug lord. A terrorist. She went to the UN to vaunt the US efforts: the US was here to provide security. She lauded the extrajudicial killings of Venezuela, Colombian and Trinidadian persons in boats in the Southern Caribbean. She provided radar, airport landing and refueling support for the eventual US attack on Venezuela, in which President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were kidnapped and transported to the US in handcuffs. And over 100 Venezuelans, 32 Cuban soldiers were murdered.
When the US turned its guns on Cuba, the PM suddenly decided that Communism was bad. When the US began its war against Iran, she decided that nuclear bombs, not possessed by Iran, were bad. The PM has been vaunting, on the pretext of national security, our diplomatic relations with the Netanyahu Government, Trump’s genocidal ally.
When Trump says jump, Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar jumps. This does not give confidence that when US foreign ‘investors’, AI databases, steel mill, vanadium, the upstream drillers and downstream producers sit at the negotiating table, opposite the NGC Chair, the Minister of Energy, the Ministry bureaucrats, independent negotiations will proceed, much less prevail. How can we call the shots when we have ceded authority to global corporations to negotiate gas supply for us? What are the terms for this seven-trillion cubic feet of natural gas being “sent” to Trinidad “for processing”?
Who could have faith that our paper-mâché energy czars can decide on the best use of our gas? Or could get the optimum deals on energy prices, tax concessions, moratoriums? Or could independently rebut the tendency to nefarious tactics such as transfer pricing, or excessive upstream pre-production costs claimed by producers?
This government has ceded control of our energy pricing and usage to the US and global partners. It has sold our nation’s sovereignty and energy security on the pretext that the US is here to fight for our national security. In order to rescue itself from its own pathetic energy politics, from income shortfalls, eager to showcase itself, it will grab tripe and call it ham and jam. Energy is not pigtail in parlor buckets; it is the mainstay of the national economy.
I shall be sprucing up my horse this Independence, moseying down to the razzmatazz at the Queen’s Park Savannah because I am being paid to. Because I swore an oath of office. Not because I feel like it.
OT/WK
