In a statement posted on the website of the Ministry of Trade and Industry three days after a March 24, 2023 courtesy call from former US Ambassador to T&T, Candace Bond, the ministry said: “Minister Gopee-Scoon acknowledged that T&T and the US continue to maintain good relations in trade with the US being this country’s largest trading partner.
“For the past three years, T&T’s average annual exports to the US were valued at TT$22.3 billion while imports averaged TT$14 billion. Among the top exports to the US include anhydrous ammonia, ferrous products from iron ore, liquefied natural gas, methanol, crude petroleum and urea.
“T&T’s products currently benefit from preferential access to the US market under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and it is to be noted that T&T has been the leading exporter under this arrangement since 2005.”
In an August 18, 2023 bilateral relations fact sheet, the US State Department said, “The United States is T&T’s largest trading partner. In 2022, T&T exported US$5.4 billion of goods to the United States and imported US$3.5 billion of goods from the United States...
“Trinidad’s leading exports to the United States are iron, crude oil, liquefied natural gas, and downstream energy products such as methanol and urea. Top imported products from the United States include food products, chemical products, refined petroleum, and machinery.”
In a post on its website, the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) indicated, “In 2022, T&T exported US$4.91 billion to the United States. The main products that T&T exported to the United States were crude petroleum (US$1.32 billion), ammonia (US$1.17 billion), and petroleum gas ($904 million).
“Over the past five years, the exports of T&T to the United States have increased at an annualised rate of 7.13 per cent, from US$3.48 billion in 2017 to US$4.91 billion in 2022.
“In 2022, the United States exported $3.03 billion to T&T. The main products that the United States exported to T&T were refined petroleum (US$969 million), planes, helicopters, and/or spacecraft (US$136 million), and iron ore (US$120 million). Over the past five years, the exports of United States to T&T increased at an annualised rate of 11.3 percent from US$1.78 billion in 2017 to US$3.03 billion in 2022.”
It is important to underline several points made above:
* The US is T&T’s largest trading partner;
* Despite the disparity in the numbers between the US State Department and the Observatory of Economic Complexity, it is clear that T&T enjoyed a trade surplus with the US in 2022, and probably still enjoys a trade surplus with that country;
* Most of T&T’s exports to the US come from the energy sector, oil and natural gas, or from petrochemical manufactures;
* T&T’s largest import from the US is refined petroleum (gasoline, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel);
* T&T’s exports to the US benefit from preferential access to the US market under the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) of 1983, which authorised unilateral preferential trade and tax benefits for eligible Caribbean countries, including duty-free treatment of eligible products.
According to the Wikipedia entry on CBERA, the legislation is often referred to as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and has been amended several times, with the last substantive revisions being made in the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Expansion Act of 1990.
“This made trade benefits permanent (repealing the September 30, 1995 termination date). The law gives preferential trade and tax benefits for eligible Caribbean countries, including duty-free entry of eligible products. To be eligible, an article must be a product of a beneficiary country and imported directly from it, and at least 35 per cent of its import value must have originated in one or more CBERA beneficiaries.”
Any chance of harm to T&T?
The premise of this article—and in particular the headline—is that policymakers in the Caribbean Community (Caricom) need to start considering the possibility that American President, Donald John Trump, may decide in the future that the US would scrap CBERA, which allows eligible products from countries in the Caribbean Basin duty-free access to the US market.
It seems to me that if Mr Trump was prepared to rip up the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which is a free trade agreement between the three countries, and threaten 25 per cent tariffs, he would be prepared to throw CBERA in the dustbin with very little thought and impose 25 per cent tariffs on regional exports. That is, of course, if he thought there was some political advantage he could gain from doing so.
It goes without saying that as T&T is one of the largest Caricom exporters to the US—it may have been eclipsed by Guyana in 2024—the economy would be devastated if the US government implements 25 per cent tariffs on the country’s exports of oil, LNG, methanol, ammonia, urea and other petrochemicals.
In 2022, the total trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada (USMCA) was US$1.8 trillion. This included US$789.7 billion in exports and US$974.3 billion in imports. In trade terms, Canada and Mexico are infinitely more consequential to the US than Caricom.
Mr Trump announced on February 1, 2025, that the US would implement a 25 per cent additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, with oil and gas imports to receive a lower tariff of 10 per cent. His rationale for threatening to impose these tariffs on Canada and Mexico is “the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl,” which he said constituted a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The language used by Mr Trump in rationalising the imposition of tariffs on Canada is instructive:
“On February 1, 2025, I determined that the failure of Canada to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept drug trafficking organisations, other drug and human traffickers, criminals at large, and illicit drugs constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
This suggests to me “the failure of Canada to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept drug trafficking organisations,” would have been a major factor in the threat to impose the 25 per cent tariff on non-energy exports by Canada to the US and the 10 per cent tariff on energy tariff.
Can countries in Caricom also be accused of failing “to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept drug trafficking organisations”?
If, for example, the T&T Government were accused by the Trump administration of failing “to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept drug trafficking organisations,” what would it say in response? That T&T’s deputy Commissioner of Police, Intelligence and Investigations, Suzette Martin, was too busy seeking to remove her boss, Erla Harewood-Christopher, to pay attention to intercepting drug trafficking organisations?
On Monday, Mr Trump paused the implementation of the 25 per cent tariff on Canada and Mexico until March 4. The executive order he issued said those countries “have taken immediate steps to alleviate the illegal migration and illicit drug crisis through cooperative actions,” and that more time was needed “to assess whether these steps constitute sufficient action to alleviate the crisis and resolve the unusual and extraordinary threat” as a result.
Canada won the reprieve from the immediate implementation of the tariffs on February 3 by agreeing to name a fentanyl czar, listing Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups and launching a Canada/US joint strike force to combat organised crime, fentanyl and money laundering.
If the US were to threaten to impose tariffs on the region, what collective actions would Caricom leaders propose to mitigate or eliminate the tariffs?
One expects that this will be at the top of the agenda of Caricom heads of government when they meet in Bridgetown, Barbados, between February 19 and 21, under the theme – Strength in Unity: Forging Caribbean Resilience, Inclusive Growth, and Sustainable Development.
