An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness groups yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern that the base­line 10 per cent tar­iff im­posed on T&T by the US will neg­a­tive­ly im­pact this coun­try and even wors­en the for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said the mea­sures threat­en to dis­rupt the flow of goods, spike con­sumer prices and un­der­mine ex­port com­pet­i­tive­ness across the Caribbean.

Of con­cern, the T&T Cham­ber not­ed, is the base­line 10 per cent tar­iff on all goods en­ter­ing the US and the US$1 mil­lion fee pro­posed on all Chi­nese-built ves­sel dock­ing at US ports.

It said the US ac­counts for 37 per cent of T&T’s ex­ports and 39 per cent of its im­ports, mak­ing the lo­cal econ­o­my high­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the shifts.

New­ly ap­point­ed T&T Cham­ber pres­i­dent Son­ji Pierre-Chase stressed, “These de­vel­op­ments un­der­score the ur­gency of build­ing trade re­silience. We must act now—with uni­ty and re­solve—to pro­tect our econ­o­my and our peo­ple.”
Weigh­ing in on the is­sue, pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Roger Roach said the tar­iffs can force T&T's goods to face stiffer com­pe­ti­tion in the Unit­ed States.

“What es­sen­tial­ly is go­ing to hap­pen is that the dis­trib­u­tors or the im­porters of those goods will now have to pay a10 per cent tar­iff on goods that are im­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed States. That on its own could cause some com­pet­i­tive shocks.”

How­ev­er, Roach said that giv­en that these tar­iffs are far-reach­ing due to the num­ber of coun­tries in­volved it is hard to as­cer­tain the im­pact un­til da­ta is avail­able.
Al­so, the En­er­gy Cham­ber said yes­ter­day it is con­sult­ing with mem­ber com­pa­nies who are ma­jor ex­porters to the US, and with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and oth­er stake­hold­ers in or­der to ful­ly un­der­stand any po­ten­tial im­pacts of new tar­iffs and iden­ti­fy any ac­tions it should take on be­half of its mem­bers.

The Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Ja­son Roach said, "We would like to see some def­i­nite pol­i­cy in re­sponse and against the back­drop of trade agree­ments that ex­ist be­tween the US and Cari­com. This is not to take a re­tal­ia­to­ry ap­proach, but such an im­por­tant ques­tion is nec­es­sary to ask at this time. More­over, it is not on­ly the US we need to pay at­ten­tion to, we need to be­gin ex­am­in­ing our own po­si­tion on how we can keep our ex­porters sus­tain­able and po­si­tion them for growth."

Mean­while, Ri­car­do Mo­hammed, Vice chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) and Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ang­ie Jairam said the un­cer­tain­ty cre­at­ed by tar­iffs and trade poli­cies could im­pact for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) in T&T. In­vestors may be less like­ly to in­vest in the steel and alu­minum sec­tors, giv­en the un­cer­tain mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment in the US and its con­se­quences for Trinidad ex­ports.