Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite yes­ter­day be­ing the dead­line for the US to im­pose a 15 per cent tar­iff on goods from T&T, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is as­sur­ing the na­tion that her gov­ern­ment is ex­plor­ing three re­sponse op­tions, in­clud­ing con­tin­ued di­a­logue with the Unit­ed States.

The in­crease is ex­pect­ed to af­fect T&T’s man­u­fac­tur­ing and ex­port sec­tors. While en­er­gy prod­ucts like crude oil and nat­ur­al gas are ex­empt, ma­jor ex­ports such as am­mo­nia and methanol will face the new tar­iff.

Au­gust 7 was des­ig­nat­ed as the dead­line for the im­po­si­tion of the tar­iff.

Speak­ing dur­ing a tour of the USNS Com­fort, a US Navy hos­pi­tal ship docked at the Port of Port-of-Spain, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters that, with re­gard to the tar­iff, “we have three op­tions. We are fol­low­ing all three op­tions.”

The PM elab­o­rat­ed on two of them as she added, “One is, of course, to en­gage in con­ver­sa­tions with our friends from the Unit­ed States. The sec­ond that we’ve al­ready be­gun is look­ing for al­ter­na­tive mar­kets we can ex­port. I think the prod­ucts that we most need will be our am­mo­nia and methanol prod­ucts, en­er­gy prod­ucts. But then our com­peti­tors are al­so be­ing hit with tar­iffs.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs are be­ing im­posed glob­al­ly and there­fore oth­er na­tions would be sim­i­lar­ly af­fect­ed.

“So, if it re­duces our com­pet­i­tive­ness, theirs is al­so re­duced.”

The Unit­ed States re­mains Trinidad and To­ba­go’s largest trad­ing part­ner, with to­tal trade es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$6 bil­lion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana are sub­ject to a 15 per cent tar­iff, while oth­er Cari­com mem­bers re­main at the low­er rate of 10 per cent that US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced on April 2..

A rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff is a tax im­posed by one coun­try on im­ports from an­oth­er coun­try, de­signed to match or “rec­i­p­ro­cate” the tar­iffs that the oth­er coun­try places on its own ex­ports.

The Unit­ed States has said it is im­pos­ing rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs to ad­dress sev­er­al con­cerns, in­clud­ing cor­rect­ing trade deficits, com­bat­ting un­fair trade prac­tices, and pro­tect­ing its do­mes­tic in­dus­tries by mak­ing im­ports more ex­pen­sive. The tar­iffs al­so serve as a ne­go­ti­at­ing tool to push for fair­er trade agree­ments and, in some cas­es, are used to ad­vance broad­er for­eign pol­i­cy goals, such as dis­cour­ag­ing pur­chas­es of Russ­ian oil

Min­is­ter of Trade, In­dus­try and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj has pre­vi­ous­ly framed the tar­iffs as a “bless­ing” and a “wake-up call” that should en­cour­age T&T to di­ver­si­fy its ex­port mar­kets. He sug­gest­ed that this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the coun­try to re­duce its re­liance on the US and ac­tive­ly seek new trade part­ners.

In Ju­ly, Cari­com chair and Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness an­nounced that while talks with the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue, the time had come for the re­gion to take trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the Caribbean, more se­ri­ous­ly.

The Mick­ela Pan­day-led Pa­tri­ot­ic Front is wor­ried that the new tar­iff is an eco­nom­ic blow that threat­ens to desta­bilise key sec­tors of the lo­cal econ­o­my.

In a news re­lease Pan­day said, “The im­po­si­tion of US tar­iffs on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports pos­es a di­rect threat to our al­ready frag­ile econ­o­my. These tar­iffs will dev­as­tate the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, en­er­gy-ad­ja­cent ex­ports and for­eign ex­change earn­ings, es­pe­cial­ly as the US ac­counts for near­ly 40 per cent of our ex­ports.”

She added, “As a re­sult, lo­cal busi­ness­es face ris­ing costs, job cuts and shrink­ing ex­port rev­enue. The rip­ple ef­fects of this will be felt in fur­ther for­eign ex­change short­ages, in­creased in­fla­tion, and pres­sure on the TT dol­lar.”

The gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse so far has drawn sharp crit­i­cism from the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front.

“For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers ad­mit­ted he got last-minute in­struc­tions from the Prime Min­is­ter at 1:30 a.m. over the week­end. This re­sponse has been clum­sy at best, reck­less at worst. Then Trade Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj called the tar­iffs a “bless­ing.” Re­spect­ful­ly, that’s a dan­ger­ous­ly naïve take on a cri­sis that de­mands clear-eyed ur­gency and ac­tion.”

She al­so con­demned what she de­scribed as Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s si­lence on the mat­ter.

Pan­day is urg­ing the pop­u­la­tion to un­der­stand the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion.

“The liveli­hoods of thou­sands of cit­i­zens, our ex­port sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and our abil­i­ty to main­tain es­sen­tial im­ports all de­pend on an ac­tive, strate­gic, and trans­par­ent gov­ern­ment re­sponse.”