Despite lobbying from Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Stuart Young during U.S. Secretary of  State Marco Rubio’s multi-nation swing through the region last month, the US has dealt Trinidad’s economy a humongous blow by blocking the country from jointly developing a giant offshore gas field with neighboring Venezuela.

Young, 50, who faces general elections on April 28, announced the revocation of the permit by the Office of Foreign Assets Control at a briefing in Port of Spain on Tuesday, contending that the permits will expire at the end of May 2025. Both the PM and local economists argued that the revocation was not an unexpected development as the Trump administration had been canceling most energy links with Venezuela, which it regards as a rogue nation.

“I have been in touch with our attorneys at law in Washington, DC. There is a process for, I wouldn’t of this revocation, but there is a process for you to make an application for it not to be revoked or for there to be amendments, and we are going to be engaged in that process on behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago,” Young stated.

He said he had already reached out to US Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone, asking for a telephone audience with Rubio, who had been fully briefed about the importance of gas to the Trinidad and Tobago economy and who had said that he had understood this fully. Regional foreign ministers recently met with the special envoy in Washington. “I expect that we will be given an audience. I expect that we will be given the opportunity to continue to make our case.”

Gas is “crucial to the Federation’s future, as daily oil production has declined dramatically to less than 55,000 barrels daily. Up to recently, Trinidad had been exporting up to 70 % of the gas needs of the American Atlantic seaboard states, but the drop in production had made the Dragon Field, straddling the marine border with Venezuela, so important to the country’s future.

It is so important that recently retired PM Keith Rowley warned of dire consequences for the nation of about 1.3 million if additional deposits are not found. “If you see us losing that Office of Foreign Assets Control) license, as you will see in the news if that happens, you know that your ‘coo coo’s cooked.’ If you see the Venezuelans not allowing us to use the Dragon field, then you know that we are in difficulty,” he had warned at a media briefing.

Gas production has declined by nearly 40 % in the past decade as reservoirs died or developers were slow to explore possible new fields. Authorities in the twin-island Republic have already discussed reaching out to neighboring Guyana to agree to a deal that could result in gas supplies from Guyana’s oil fields.