GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les is ad­vis­ing that coun­tries with­in the re­gion ought to come to­geth­er to ne­go­ti­ate with the US for low­er tar­iffs.

T&T is brac­ing for a po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic blow as the Unit­ed States ramps up tar­iffs on lo­cal ex­ports to 15 per cent, trig­ger­ing fears of re­duced com­pet­i­tive­ness, shrink­ing for­eign ex­change in­flows and hits to the man­u­fac­tur­ing and en­er­gy sec­tors.

Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that these tar­iffs are tied in­to Cari­com coun­tries that sub­scribe to the Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff, and as such they can­not ne­go­ti­ate sep­a­rate­ly.

“We have to ne­go­ti­ate to­geth­er. We have to hope that all the Cari­com coun­tries will see the ben­e­fit of try­ing to ne­go­ti­ate a low­er tar­iff with the Unit­ed States,” he ex­plained.

Not­ing that the Unit­ed States has a gen­er­al pol­i­cy of rais­ing its tar­iffs to try to en­cour­age in­vest­ment there, Gon­za­les agreed this would cer­tain­ly af­fect T&T’s ex­ports to the Unit­ed States.

He not­ed how­ev­er, there are still some ar­eas, es­pe­cial­ly oil and gas and petro­chem­i­cals, which may still en­joy a low tar­iff or a ze­ro tar­iff, be­cause those coun­tries tend to im­port these ba­sic ma­te­ri­als at ze­ro rate as they need them as in­puts in­to their in­dus­try.

“It’s re­al­ly more or less the non-en­er­gy com­modi­ties that are af­fect­ed and that is where I have some con­cern. We are try­ing to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my, and we are try­ing to de­vel­op a lot of non-en­er­gy ex­ports, and the US mar­ket is a very im­por­tant one. We have a lot of our na­tion­als in the di­as­po­ra there and they im­port from T&T.

“A lot of our small en­tre­pre­neurs who are now com­ing in­to ex­port­ing they’re try­ing to get in­to that mar­ket there and try­ing to sell a lot of things that we could pro­duce here in a very com­pet­i­tive way.

“A lot of things like food and bev­er­ages, for ex­am­ple, we’re try­ing, in a sense, to sell these not on­ly to the Caribbean, but al­so to the Unit­ed States. So if there’s a high tar­iff, 15 per cent would af­fect these com­modi­ties. So we have to start look­ing to di­ver­si­fy our ex­ports to oth­er mar­kets,” Gon­za­les added.

He fur­ther ad­vised that the US mar­ket can­not be ig­nored, be­cause in terms of a rel­a­tive tar­iff, that is what T&T has to pay as com­pared to oth­er coun­tries.

“We may still be able to ex­port cer­tain com­modi­ties com­pet­i­tive­ly to the Unit­ed States be­cause it’s a gen­er­al tar­iff that they’re rais­ing. It’s not ex­clu­sive­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“So while we would like a low­er tar­iff, it may not be en­tire­ly pos­si­ble for us to ex­port cer­tain items on a com­pet­i­tive ba­sis. But we have to work that out and see how it would go. But cer­tain­ly I would think that we would like to see a low­er tar­iff, and in that sense we need to talk to the Unit­ed States,” he re­it­er­at­ed.