PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC—Prime Minister Stuart Young says he expects the United States’ decision to impose sweeping tariffs internationally, including on countries in the Caribbean, to be discussed when regional leaders meet virtually on April 11.
“We have a CARICOM heads meeting on the 11th of April, a virtual meeting, and I am certain that if we don’t have a meeting before that scheduled meeting, this whole topic of conversation will come up. Of course, CARICOM, speaking as a bloc, a united bloc, has a much stronger voice.
“We will remain engaged. We are currently gathering information and assessing how it will affect Trinidad and Tobago’s exports to the United States. We have a Caribbean Basin Initiative…and that’s one of the things we will raise with the United States today.
“So, like many countries across the world, we are now gathering the information…and as soon as that is done, with a level of transparency and accountability, we will come and talk to the population about how we believe it is going to affect us and what are some of the measures that we may be able to take.”
Young, speaking at the weekly Cabinet news conference, told reporters that his Trade Minister, Paula Goopee Scoon, would be holding talks on Thursday with United States officials here on the issue.
“I have been in constant contact with the Minister of Trade, the Minister of CARICOM and Foreign Affairs (Dr. Amery Browne), and in fact, this morning, I asked the Minister of Trade to meet with the United States government personnel in Trinidad at the US Embassy to gather more information,” Young said.
On Wednesday, Trump announced far-reaching new tariffs on nearly all US trading partners, including a 34 percent tax on imports from China and 20 percent on the European Union. Economists and other traders say the move is designed to dismantle much of the global economy’s architecture and trigger broader trade wars.
In the Caribbean, Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on most regional countries, while the tariff on Guyana is as high as 38 percent.
Trump said that the tariffs were designed to boost domestic manufacturing, and used aggressive rhetoric to describe a global trade system that the United States helped to build after World War II, saying, “Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered” by other nations.
“We are all now in the process of studying exactly what this is…I can tell the population that from an initial information perspective, it does not appear to be a blanket tariff of 10 percent on all goods exported from Trinidad and Tobago to the United States,” Young said.
“There are, it appears, certain exceptions, so we are currently studying that,” Young said, adding that “from a logical point of view, the wide-ranging imposition meaning many, many countries, some with higher rates than others, it does not appear initially on the face of it, that it makes things less competitive …
“If everybody is starting from a baseline…it is premature for me to say anything at this stage until the specifics of Trinidad and Tobago…and of course, there is an opportunity for conversation with the United States.”
Young reiterated that while it would be “too early” to indicate the tariff’s impact on Trinidad and Tobago, the United States is not the only market importing this country’s methanol, ammonia, liquified natural gas, and other energy products.
“I am being told preliminarily some of those products…may not be affected by the tariff, and I think it is premature for me to make any declaration at this stage. We are studying it …we have our experts on it …so we can come to the population and say this is how we expect to deal with it…”
Economists say the United States action amounts to a historic tax hike that could threaten the global order.
Trump said he was acting to generate hundreds of billions in new revenue for the US government and restore fairness to global trade.
“Taxpayers have been ripped off for over 50 years,” he said. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”
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