GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj has called on TTPost and rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to act quick­ly to re­solve the tem­po­rary sus­pen­sion of postal ser­vices for mer­chan­dise bound for the Unit­ed States.

TTPost, in a state­ment on Fri­day, said that fol­low­ing the US ex­ec­u­tive or­der of Ju­ly 30, 2025, ti­tled “Sus­pend­ing Du­ty-Free De Min­imis Treat­ment for All Coun­tries”, the du­ty-free ex­emp­tion for goods val­ued at US$800 or less was elim­i­nat­ed ef­fec­tive Au­gust 29. Con­se­quent­ly, all in­ter­na­tion­al postal items con­tain­ing goods des­tined for the US, re­gard­less of val­ue, are now sub­ject to cus­toms du­ties.

Ma­haraj de­scribed the sus­pen­sion as a ma­jor con­cern for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) that re­ly on TTPost as a crit­i­cal link to their over­seas cus­tomers.

“This dis­rup­tion is al­ready cre­at­ing prob­lems. Or­ders can’t be filled on time, cus­tomers are frus­trat­ed, and busi­ness­es face the risk of los­ing sales and cred­i­bil­i­ty. In­ter­rup­tions like this slow down progress and put ex­tra fi­nan­cial strain on both busi­ness­es and con­sumers,” he said.

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon echoed these con­cerns, not­ing that the sus­pen­sion con­strained the com­pet­i­tive­ness and prof­itabil­i­ty of ex­port-ori­ent­ed mi­cro and small busi­ness­es that de­pend­ed on this low-cost chan­nel.

Since the pan­dem­ic, many of these busi­ness­es—par­tic­u­lar­ly in hand­i­craft, jew­ellery, cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories, and spe­cial­ty foods like sauces, co­coa, and choco­lates—have ex­pand­ed in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets through e-com­merce plat­forms.

Ar­joon said that to ful­fil US or­ders, busi­ness­es now must re­ly on pri­vate couri­ers such as DHL and FedEx, whose high­er ship­ping costs erod­ed prof­it mar­gins and threat­en the vi­a­bil­i­ty of their ex­port ini­tia­tives.

“To meet ex­ist­ing paid or­ders, T&T sell­ers are forced ei­ther to ab­sorb these costs, sharply re­duc­ing prof­itabil­i­ty, or pass them on­to cus­tomers, risk­ing can­cel­la­tions, re­funds, rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age, and the loss of hard-won US clien­tele,” he ex­plained.

He warned that un­til the sus­pen­sion was lift­ed, many busi­ness­es may need to fac­tor couri­er costs in­to new or­ders, po­ten­tial­ly strain­ing sales and com­pet­i­tive­ness. Some may even tem­porar­i­ly halt US sales and de­liv­er­ies due to pro­hib­i­tive ship­ping costs.

While the broad­er macro­eco­nom­ic im­pact may be mod­est, Ar­joon not­ed, the move di­rect­ly re­duced sales rev­enues and squeezes al­ready nar­row mar­gins, ul­ti­mate­ly low­er­ing tax con­tri­bu­tions and di­min­ish­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings from ex­ports.

He cau­tioned that pro­longed sus­pen­sion could push busi­ness­es to­ward al­ter­na­tive, riski­er sources of for­eign cur­ren­cy to cov­er op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es, fur­ther in­creas­ing costs and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

Ar­joon rec­om­mend­ed that ex­porters ad­just how they man­age on­line or­ders. He sug­gest­ed spec­i­fy­ing that US or­ders are sub­ject to du­ties up­on de­liv­ery and us­ing the De­liv­ered Du­ty Paid op­tion, where du­ties and tax­es are pre­paid and in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the fi­nal price.

While this might make prices ap­pear high­er, he said, it pre­vent­ed un­pleas­ant sur­pris­es for buy­ers and pro­tects sell­ers’ rep­u­ta­tions.