Antigua PM warns T&T may breach Treaty of Chaguaramas with duty hike

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has warned that while Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­cent in­crease in im­port du­ties on cer­tain Cari­com prod­ucts may be ac­cept­able for health rea­sons, any wider ap­pli­ca­tion could vi­o­late the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. Browne al­so cau­tioned that, as the “su­per­mar­ket of the Caribbean,” T&T could face a “boomerang ef­fect” if the pol­i­cy is mis­han­dled.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Browne re­mind­ed “my dear friend, Kam­la” of the need to strength­en re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

“We are all part of the same com­mu­ni­ty, ge­og­ra­phy, and his­to­ry, and we have to pre­serve those re­la­tions,” he said. “There’s a need to strength­en the in­te­gra­tion move­ment, not frac­ture it.”

His com­ments fol­lowed T&T’s an­nounce­ment last week that im­port du­ties on Cari­com-made malt bev­er­ages, beer, rum, cig­a­rettes, and to­bac­co would be in­creased by 100 per cent. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh said the mea­sure re­spond­ed to con­cerns from the lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, which said the pre­vi­ous tar­iff struc­ture put them at an un­fair dis­ad­van­tage. Swarats­ingh al­so cit­ed the health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with these prod­ucts as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the hike.

On the du­ty in­crease, Browne said he would ex­am­ine the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas to de­ter­mine whether the move breach­es its pro­vi­sions on the free move­ment of goods.

“From a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, the in­crease may seem nec­es­sary,” he said. “But if it goes be­yond health pro­tec­tion, it could bring in­to fo­cus T&T’s oblig­a­tions un­der the Treaty and may con­sti­tute a vi­o­la­tion. T&T would not want to see its sta­tus as the ‘su­per­mar­ket of the re­gion’ erod­ed, es­pe­cial­ly if tar­iff in­creas­es hurt it more than oth­er ter­ri­to­ries in the re­gion.”

Browne not­ed that un­der the Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) can source cheap­er goods from oth­er ter­ri­to­ries, high­light­ing the need for cau­tion un­der the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME).

“While high­er du­ties to pro­tect health are un­der­stand­able, based on cer­tain state­ments from my dear friend Kam­la, I just hope she un­der­stands that if we are part of the same com­mu­ni­ty, there’s a need to strength­en in­te­gra­tion, not frac­ture it—es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape and cer­tain sit­u­a­tions in the south­ern Caribbean that could desta­bilise the re­gion,” Browne said.

He al­so stressed the im­por­tance of re­spect­ing hu­man rights and in­ter­na­tion­al law while ad­dress­ing nar­co-traf­fick­ing.

“Don’t throw out the ba­by with the bath­wa­ter,” he added, urg­ing against al­low­ing ex­ter­nal pow­ers to desta­bilise the re­gion. “Your Prime Min­is­ter would be well ad­vised to be more syn­op­tic and do all in her pow­er to pro­tect Caribbean uni­ty.”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment on Browne’s state­ment that the du­ty in­crease may be ac­cept­able for health rea­sons but could oth­er­wise vi­o­late the Treaty.

Last Sun­day, Dr Den­zil Dou­glas, chair­man of Cari­com’s Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) and for­mer prime min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis, af­firmed that while the sit­u­a­tion be­tween T&T and Cari­com may ap­pear un­cer­tain, T&T re­mains an in­te­gral part of the re­gion­al move­ment.

Dou­glas made the com­ments in re­sponse to con­cerns about T&T’s po­si­tion on re­gion­al peace and its sup­port for the US-led an­ti-drug mis­sion, which has so far de­stroyed 15 ves­sels and re­sult­ed in 64 deaths.

“The sit­u­a­tion be­tween T&T and Cari­com may seem one of un­cer­tain­ty and hes­i­tan­cy,” Dou­glas said. “But we are cer­tain that T&T is part of Cari­com and an in­te­gral part at that.”

He added that COF­COR is not alarmed by T&T’s ac­tions.

“Cari­com doesn’t have a prob­lem with T&T. T&T and Cari­com are still one,” Dou­glas said, re­as­sur­ing the re­gion that the twin-is­land na­tion re­mains ful­ly en­gaged in the in­te­gra­tion process.