To transport 70 monthly passengers in June, only 45 passengers were passed in August, said Venezuelan businesswoman Alana Medina, operator of the Ferri Ángel del Orinoco
The flow of passengers that the journey in Ferri between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela has decreased dramatically since the beginning of the US military deployment in the area, financially affecting the companies of the sector and the trade.
Of hundreds of passengers who used this means of transport between the two countries each month, the number has been reduced to a few dozen, according to Efe the Ferris operators.
The Venezuelan businesswoman Alana Medina, operator of the Ferri Ángel del Orinoco, between the port of Tucupita in Venezuela and that of Cedros in the southwest of Trinidad, affirms that the company faces serious challenges.
“Of transporting 70 monthly passengers in June, we have seen a strong decrease to only 45 passengers in August,” laments Medina, residing in Venezuela but visits Trinidad twice a month for business.
September traffic has not improved. The businesswoman details that the Ferri who left the 11th of Tucupita docked in Cedros with only 15 passengers.
The worst decline in years
According to Medina, from the company’s foundation nine years ago, this is the worst decline they have experienced: “The company’s financial situation is very difficult at this time,” he emphasizes.
When asked why fewer people travel, Medina speculates that people may be the closing of the borders between the two countries, whose current relationship is of great tension.
Nicolás Maduro said this month that the Trinitense Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissssar, “went crazy, threatening that from Trinidad and Tobago she will authorize attacks against Venezuela, declaring almost the war to Venezuela.”
Persad-Bissssar has denied that there have been conversations with the United States to invade Venezuela, but has given its support to the US military deployment in the Caribbean, the attacks against alleged drug traffickers are already.
However, Venezuela’s ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Álvaro Enrique Sánchez Cordero, denied in statements written to Efe that this border closure can be given, ensuring that “everything is fine with maritime connections between Tucupita and Cedros.”
Bilateral trade on the tightrope
Not only has the flow of travelers decreased, but also trade in the ports of San Fernando and Cedros. Venezuela exports to Trinidad and Tobago products such as wood, clothing and footwear.
A source of the Customs Division and Special Taxes of Trinidad and Tobago, based in King’s Wharf in San Fernando, informed Efe that currently only two Venezuelan load ships bring wood and clothing twice a month. Until 2024, those same ships arrived three times a week.
According to the Statistical Database on the United Nations Basic Commerce, bilateral trade between Trinidad and Venezuela fell 56 % between 2017 and 2024.
This fall is not only due to the current tensions in the Caribbean. Trinitense businessman Cassian Valdez explains that “extortion and corruption” in Venezuela forced him to reduce his imports from 800 cubic feet of pine wood per month to only 80 cubic feet.
«You pay for wood and do not receive it. I lost $ 30,000 in wood for this. The Venezuelan National Guard confiscated the materials even with the documentation, ”Valdez denounces.
The businessman says that he is now bringing “10 % of what used to import Venezuela” and that he has established links in Brazil, where he buys the remaining 90 %.
“Before I finish this year, I will stop importing completely (from Venezuela),” says Valdez, despite the fact that the proximity allows shipments to arrive much faster than from other countries.
With information from the EFE agency
*Journalism in Venezuela is exercised in a hostile environment for the press with dozens of legal instruments arranged for the punishment of the word, especially the laws “against hatred”, “against fascism” and “against blockade.” This content was written taking into consideration the threats and limits that, consequently, have been imposed on the dissemination of information from within the country.
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