Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor News­gath­er

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon says she will be mon­i­tor­ing how the 10% tar­iffs US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump levied on T&T yes­ter­day will af­fect the coun­try go­ing for­ward.

“I am re­view­ing the an­nounce­ments made. As you know, US/Caribbean trad­ing arrange­ments are gov­erned un­der the Caribbean Basin Ini­tia­tive. Fur­ther clar­i­ty is re­quired,” Gopee-Scoon said hours af­ter Trump an­nounced the sweep­ing glob­al tar­iffs as part of what he called “dis­count­ed rec­i­p­ro­cal” rates.

The 10% tar­iff was the same levied on oth­er Cari­com coun­tries. The ex­cep­tion was Guyana, who now face a 38% tar­iff.

Speak­ing from the White House Rose Gar­den, Trump said the tar­iffs are de­signed to “lev­el the play­ing field” and coun­ter­act what he de­scribed as un­fair trade prac­tices by oth­er na­tions.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the new tar­iffs yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Amery Browne said, “We have not­ed that a num­ber of coun­tries have in­di­cat­ed that they are set to rec­i­p­ro­cate in the near fu­ture. We are con­cerned that spi­ralling in­sta­bil­i­ty in glob­al trade and eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy will have sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive reper­cus­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small­er na­tions. Our coun­try, and much of Cari­com, for­tu­nate­ly, is in a rel­a­tive­ly low tar­iff brack­et and the Gov­ern­ment, as al­ways, will be con­sult­ing and work­ing with all key stake­hold­ers as to­geth­er we nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of our times.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne said the move may force Cari­com coun­tries to find oth­er trade op­tions.

“It’s not a crazy idea. Every­body is look­ing at that at the mo­ment. How do we change our ex­port struc­ture? Chi­na, for ex­am­ple, where the tar­iff has been about 34 per cent. We have been look­ing at de­vel­op­ing arrange­ments with oth­er coun­tries. In oth­er words, to what ex­tent can I shift my ex­port to third-par­ty coun­tries?

“We are the largest ex­porter of am­mo­nia now and prob­a­bly that dom­i­nates our petro­chem­i­cal ex­ports out of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Am­mo­nia es­sen­tial­ly is an in­put in­to fer­tilis­er. So, the is­sue is, is there an op­por­tu­ni­ty to sell to oth­er coun­tries at rel­a­tive­ly the same prices or high­er? Every coun­try is go­ing to be look­ing at that at this stage of the game,” Browne said.

Browne al­so high­light­ed the im­pact the tar­iffs will have on T&T’s al­ready de­plet­ing for­eign ex­change. He said tax rev­enue from gas com­pa­nies will lessen as it is pegged on prof­itabil­i­ty, which will be im­pact­ed by the tar­iff, as well as for­eign ex­change earn­ings from the sale of petro­chem­i­cal prod­ucts.

“The ef­fect could be worse than ten per cent be­cause you’re talk­ing about com­bined ef­fects. Com­bined ef­fects in terms of net rev­enue, in terms of how it af­fects the gov­ern­ment, and al­so how it af­fects our for­eign ex­change po­si­tion. Those are the kinds of is­sues that you have to pay at­ten­tion to. And so far, I don’t think there’s been any sort of de­fin­i­tive cal­cu­la­tion in terms of how it’s go­ing to af­fect us. But it has an im­por­tant ef­fect. So, we can’t say it’s not go­ing to af­fect us. It must, how bad­ly, is an­oth­er mat­ter.”

Mean­while, speak­ing on CNC3 news last night, econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs said the im­po­si­tion of the tar­iff will mean high­er costs for con­sumers but not­ed this may al­so open a door for trade with Cana­da.

How­ev­er, Attzs said the im­pact to con­sumers will mean high­er prices.

“As con­sumers, we will prob­a­bly now have to make slight­ly dif­fer­ent de­ci­sions in terms of how we make our on­line pur­chas­es, be­cause it could very well be that there is a rip­ple ef­fect. And with sup­ply chain chal­lenges com­ing in and the sup­ply chain domi­no ef­fect tak­ing place, con­sumers who shop on­line could very well see them­selves, as I said, from those ma­jor plat­forms, see them­selves fac­ing high­er prices in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture,” Attzs said.

So, it’s some­thing that con­sumers will need to look at and they would need to act ac­cord­ing­ly in terms of how they make their pur­chas­es, be­cause that will be cou­pled with our for­eign ex­change chal­lenge.” —with re­port­ing by Jensen La Vende