US-Caribbean trade and eco­nom­ic ties re­port­ed­ly have been strength­ened for a fur­ther 10 years with the sign­ing in­to law of the Caribbean Basin Eco­nom­ic Re­cov­ery Act (CBERA) in the Unit­ed States.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from T&T’s Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the new law –which was signed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Oc­to­ber 10th, will re­main in force un­til 30th Sep­tem­ber 2030, en­sur­ing con­tin­ued pref­er­en­tial du­ty treat­ment for cer­tain goods pro­duced in the Caribbean Basin.

The full text of the state­ment from the Min­istry of Trade, fol­lows…

EX­TEN­SION OF THE CARIBBEAN BASIN ECO­NOM­IC RE­COV­ERY ACT (CBERA)

The Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is pleased to an­nounce that on 10 Oc­to­ber 2020, Unit­ed States (US) Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump signed in­to law, leg­is­la­tion ex­tend­ing pref­er­en­tial du­ty treat­ment for cer­tain goods pro­duced in the Caribbean Basin un­der the Caribbean Basin Eco­nom­ic Re­cov­ery Act (CBERA) un­til 30 Sep­tem­ber 2030.

The CBERA, which was im­ple­ment­ed on 01 Jan­u­ary 1984, is in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the de­vel­op­ment of sta­ble Caribbean Basin economies by pro­vid­ing des­ig­nat­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­tries with du­ty-free ac­cess to the Unit­ed States mar­ket for most goods. Trinidad and To­ba­go has been a ben­e­fi­cia­ry since in­cep­tion which has al­lowed for du­ty-free ac­cess of se­lect­ed com­modi­ties in­to the US mar­ket. The trade pref­er­ence was due to ex­pire on 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020.

Leg­is­la­tion to re­new the CBERA was in­tro­duced in the Unit­ed States Con­gress dur­ing the 116th Con­gress (2019-2020) due to the ac­tive lob­by­ing ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM).

Var­i­ous CARI­COM Mis­sions were led to Wash­ing­ton, in­clud­ing a Trinidad and To­ba­go Mis­sion led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr. the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley who met with var­i­ous Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers, where this and oth­er mat­ters of mu­tu­al in­ter­est and ben­e­fit were raised. In ad­di­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Am­bas­sador An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer and the CARI­COM Am­bas­sadors in Wash­ing­ton D.C. must be com­mend­ed for their per­sis­tent en­gage­ment to lob­by for the ex­ten­sion. The work of the lob­by­ing firm, the Group DC has al­so been in­stru­men­tal in pro­vid­ing strat­e­gy and sup­port to the Gov­ern­ment.

The leg­is­la­tion was passed in both Hous­es of the Unit­ed States Con­gress in Sep­tem­ber 2020 with over­whelm­ing bi­par­ti­san sup­port.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with the USA is a vi­tal part of the coun­try’s over­all trade, as the USA is our top ex­port and im­port part­ner.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s 2019 Re­port on the Op­er­a­tion of CBERA, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been the lead­ing ex­porter to the US un­der CBERA since 2005. Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­port­ed US$ 551.8 mil­lion to the US in 2018, which rep­re­sents an in­crease of 13.1% over its val­ue in 2017. The main ex­ports to the US were methanol (US$ 449 mil­lion) and pe­tro­le­um and pe­tro­le­um-re­lat­ed prod­ucts (US$ 55.4 mil­lion). In ad­di­tion, the top en­er­gy ex­ports to the US in 2019 in­clud­ing liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG), an­hy­drous am­mo­nia, urea and methanol ac­count­ed for ap­prox­i­mate­ly TTD$ 8.6 bil­lion. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s top non-en­er­gy prod­ucts to the US in 2019 in­clud­ing rum, aer­at­ed bev­er­ages, sug­ar con­fec­tionery, sauces and bis­cuits ac­count­ed for ap­prox­i­mate­ly TTD$ 55 mil­lion.

In 2019, over 36% of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s to­tal ex­ports and 51% of the coun­try’s non-en­er­gy ex­ports were con­sumed in the USA. Over two hun­dred (200) firms ex­port­ed du­ty free to the USA gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings and em­ploy­ment.

The con­tin­u­a­tion of the CBERA pref­er­ences forms a key part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery strat­e­gy as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to re­set the econ­o­my for growth and in­no­va­tion.