Akash Sama­roo

De­spite it be­ing dead­line day for the US to im­pose its 15% rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff on a range of goods im­port­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar seeks to as­sure the na­tion that the Gov­ern­ment is ex­plor­ing three op­tions, one be­ing con­tin­ued di­a­logue with the Unit­ed States.

The in­crease is ex­pect­ed to af­fect Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tur­ing and ex­port sec­tors. While en­er­gy prod­ucts like crude oil and nat­ur­al gas are ex­empt, ma­jor ex­ports such as am­mo­nia and fer­tilis­er will face the new tar­iff.

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

Speak­ing dur­ing her tour of the USNS Com­fort, a U.S. 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% tar­iff, while oth­er CARI­COM mem­bers re­main at a low­er rate.

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, com­bat­ing un­fair trade prac­tices, and pro­tect­ing 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 Trinidad and To­ba­go to di­ver­si­fy its ex­port mar­kets.

He sug­gest­ed that this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the coun­try to re­duce its re­liance on the U.S. and ac­tive­ly seek new trade part­ners.