A re­gion­al pri­vate sec­tor body has pro­ject­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) stands to lose an es­ti­mat­ed US$291.9 mil­lion ($1.98 bil­lion) in po­ten­tial an­nu­al ex­port rev­enue as a re­sult of the im­po­si­tion of the 15 per cent tar­iff on this coun­try’s ex­ports to the Unit­ed States (US).

The Cari­com Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CP­SO) is warn­ing that the US de­ci­sion to raise T&T’s rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff rate from ten per cent to 15 per cent “could re­sult in the most se­vere, ab­solute im­pact up­on any of the Cari­com mem­ber states. This im­pact could put the coun­try in the un­en­vi­able po­si­tion of suf­fer­ing the most sig­nif­i­cant ex­port rev­enue loss.”

On April 2, 2025, the US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced the im­po­si­tion of rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs on the ex­ports to the US by dozens of coun­tries around the world. T&T re­ceived a 10 per cent tar­iff, Guyana’s tar­iff was 38 per cent, while the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff on the oth­er Cari­com coun­tries was 10 per cent.

Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 7, the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff on T&T ex­ports to the US was in­creased to 15 per cent, while the tar­iff on Guyana’s ex­ports was re­duced from 38 per cent to 15 per cent. Oil and nat­ur­al gas ex­ports to the US are not in­clud­ed in the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs im­posed by that coun­try.

Since Au­gust 7, the T&T Gov­ern­ment has not made an of­fi­cial state­ment on the im­pact of the im­po­si­tion of the 15 per cent tar­iff on T&T ex­ports to the US. Ef­forts by Guardian Me­dia to get a state­ment on the is­sue from Tues­day and Wednes­day morn­ing were not suc­cess­ful up to the press time for this pub­li­ca­tion.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, the CP­SO said it is note­wor­thy that pri­or to the im­po­si­tion of the April tar­iff of 10 per cent, Cari­com mem­ber states, in­clud­ing T&T, ben­e­fit­ted from du­ty-free ac­cess to the US mar­ket un­der the Caribbean Basin Ini­tia­tive (CBI). The in­creased tar­iff rate (to 15 per cent), which took ef­fect from Au­gust 7, comes just months af­ter T&T had been as­signed the 10 per cent base­line rate, which was in­tro­duced in April 2025 as part of the Amer­i­ca First trade pol­i­cy.

The re­gion­al pri­vate sec­tor body said its mod­el­ling now projects US$291.9 mil­lion in po­ten­tial an­nu­al ex­port rev­enue loss­es for T&T. That is up from US$194.6 mil­lion un­der the 10 per cent base­line rate. The CP­SO said the US$291.9 mil­lion fig­ure widens the gap be­tween T&T and oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states in terms of the po­ten­tial ex­port loss­es to be in­curred as a re­sult of the US mea­sure.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta on the web­site of the US Cen­sus Bu­reau, T&T ex­port­ed goods worth US$3.37 bil­lion to the US in 2024, while im­port­ing goods worth US$2.94 bil­lion. Based on the US sta­tis­tics for 2024, the CP­SO es­ti­mate of the im­pact of the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs amounts to 8.66 per cent.

The lob­by group said over two-thirds of the es­ti­mat­ed loss­es ex­pect­ed to be suf­fered by T&T are con­cen­trat­ed in two sec­tors: base met­als and ar­ti­cles there­of (US$199.3 mil­lion) and chem­i­cals (US$74.8 mil­lion).

The base met­als cat­e­go­ry large­ly com­pris­es var­i­ous forms of iron and steel prod­ucts that are wide­ly used in the Unit­ed States across con­struc­tion, au­to­mo­tive and man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­tries, the re­gion­al pri­vate sec­tor group said.

The chem­i­cals cat­e­go­ry in­cludes prod­ucts such as an­hy­drous am­mo­nia, methanol and urea, which are crit­i­cal in­puts for fer­tilis­er pro­duc­tion, plas­tics and oth­er in­dus­tri­al process­es. To­geth­er, these ex­ports from T&T an­chor the coun­try’s in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty and al­so feed in­to US sup­ply chains that re­ly on com­pet­i­tive­ly priced raw ma­te­ri­als, the CP­SO said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said that while the mag­ni­tude of the po­ten­tial rev­enue loss for the agri­cul­ture and food prod­ucts sec­tor (es­ti­mat­ed at just over US$9 mil­lion) is not as large as the base met­als and chem­i­cals sec­tors, the im­pli­ca­tions for agri­cul­ture and food prod­ucts are far from be­nign.

“This sec­tor sus­tains small pro­duc­ers and rur­al liveli­hoods, rang­ing from fish prod­ucts, which are an im­por­tant ex­port to US food mar­kets, to pre­pared condi­ments, sauces and sea­son­ings, which are sup­plied to both di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties and the grow­ing spe­cial­ty food seg­ments of the US mar­ket,” said the CP­SO. The body not­ed that there are oth­er very small cat­e­gories of goods that T&T ex­ports to the US, in­clud­ing ma­chin­ery and elec­tri­cal equip­ment, trans­port equip­ment and hides, tex­tiles and ap­par­el.

For many of these mi­cro and small ex­porters, the ad­di­tion­al five per cent, com­pound­ed on­to the 10 per cent an­nounced in April, will present an even greater chal­lenge to their ex­port com­pet­i­tive­ness and to the for­eign ex­change-earn­ing po­ten­tial of the T&T econ­o­my, ac­cord­ing to the CP­SO.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go was al­ready the most ex­posed Cari­com econ­o­my un­der the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff regime,” said Dr Patrick An­toine, CEO and tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor of the CP­SO. “This ad­just­ment not on­ly in­creas­es the scale of po­ten­tial loss­es, but it does so in sec­tors that are vi­tal to our in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty and to US man­u­fac­tur­ers who re­ly on our ex­ports for in­puts.”

Dr An­toine al­so linked the de­vel­op­ment to a broad­er ero­sion of Cari­com’s his­toric trade po­si­tion with the US.

“In our re­cent sub­mis­sion to the US re­view of the Caribbean Basin Ini­tia­tive, we high­light­ed that these new tar­iffs erode the pref­er­en­tial ac­cess that has un­der­pinned our eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the US for decades. That ero­sion is now ac­cel­er­at­ing.”

The CP­SO in­di­cat­ed that the Amer­i­ca First pol­i­cy and the April im­po­si­tion of rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs were the wake-up call for the re­gion. It said the lat­est ad­just­ment to 15 per cent is the sig­nal of the need for rapid, co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion to safe­guard com­pet­i­tive­ness. That ac­tion, Dr An­toine not­ed, must be built on proven mod­els of col­lab­o­ra­tion:

“The joint re­gion­al and pri­vate sec­tor po­si­tion that se­cured ex­emp­tions for Chi­na-built ships and short-sea ship­ping for the Caribbean is proof that when we act col­lec­tive­ly, we can pro­tect our strate­gic in­ter­ests.

“Now is the time to ap­ply that same re­solve—to pro­tect cur­rent trade flows, en­gage the US on tar­iff dif­fer­en­tials and po­si­tion T&T and Cari­com for long-term strength in a more con­test­ed glob­al mar­ket,” An­toine said.

Speak­ing at the clos­ing news con­fer­ence for the 49th reg­u­lar meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment at Cari­com in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, on Ju­ly 8, Cari­com chair­man and Prime Min­is­ter of Ja­maica, An­drew Hol­ness, said the time had come for the re­gion to take trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the Caribbean, more se­ri­ous­ly.

Asked if the mat­ter came be­fore Cari­com dur­ing the meet­ing, Hol­ness replied, “As you would know, Cari­com has an ex­ter­nal trade ne­go­ti­a­tion com­mit­tee. We have en­gaged with the US trade rep­re­sen­ta­tive on this mat­ter, and they have es­sen­tial­ly said that af­ter the 9th (Ju­ly), then they will re-en­gage with us for fur­ther ne­go­ti­a­tions. So, we are prepar­ing for very strong ne­go­ti­a­tions for our po­si­tion.”

How­ev­er, if the tar­iff is to be im­ple­ment­ed, Hol­ness said Cari­com must adapt. He said for a long time the re­gion has been talk­ing about strength­en­ing trade co­op­er­a­tion with Africa, Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca and even with­in Cari­com.

“Be­cause even with­in Cari­com, the trade is prob­a­bly less than 15 per cent in­ter­nal rel­a­tive to to­tal trade. So, the ques­tion is, what are you go­ing to do with this new base tar­iff that’s im­ple­ment­ed? But one of the things we have to do is to di­ver­si­fy our trade.”

What is a tar­iff?

A tar­iff is a tax on im­ports. It is typ­i­cal­ly charged as a per­cent­age of the price a buy­er pays a for­eign sell­er for an im­port­ed prod­uct, and it is paid by the im­porter—usu­al­ly a do­mes­tic com­pa­ny—to the cus­toms au­thor­i­ty.

About the Cari­com Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­ga­ni­za­tion:

The Cari­com Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CP­SO) is the most re­cent­ly ac­cred­it­ed As­so­ciate In­sti­tu­tion of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. The CP­SO is a ‘ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tion’ to mo­bilise and ad­vance pri­vate sec­tor par­tic­i­pa­tion in Cari­com, with a man­date to con­tribute to the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME). The mem­ber­ship of the CP­SO is com­prised of pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties op­er­at­ing in the Cari­com space, in­clud­ing Mi­cro, Small and Medi­um Sized En­ter­pris­es (MSMEs).