Business leaders eye US midterm’s impact on trade

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

The De­moc­rats’ his­toric vic­to­ry in the Unit­ed States midterm elec­tions has raised ques­tions about the fu­ture of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s trade poli­cies, the cost of do­ing busi­ness and the im­pli­ca­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy ex­ports.

With De­moc­rats re­gain­ing con­trol of both the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate, lo­cal busi­ness lead­ers are watch­ing close­ly for signs of a shift in Wash­ing­ton’s eco­nom­ic and for­eign pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.

The re­sult rep­re­sents a ma­jor set­back for Trump, end­ing Re­pub­li­can con­trol of Con­gress for the re­main­der of his term and po­ten­tial­ly plac­ing greater leg­isla­tive scruti­ny on his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sions.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh be­lieves the change in the com­po­si­tion of Con­gress could en­cour­age greater di­a­logue on in­ter­na­tion­al trade poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pro­tec­tion­ist mea­sures and tar­iffs that have af­fect­ed busi­ness­es.

The US re­mains T&T’s largest trad­ing part­ner, mak­ing de­vel­op­ments in Wash­ing­ton par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant for the lo­cal econ­o­my.

Singh be­lieves small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es have borne some of the bur­den of high­er costs, forc­ing busi­ness­es to ex­plore al­ter­na­tive mar­kets to sus­tain and ex­pand ex­ports.

“These pro­tec­tion­ist poli­cies, which have been in place for some time by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, did im­pose in­creased costs and dis­rupt the sup­ply chain, which we so heav­i­ly de­pend on,” Singh said.

Singh stressed that T&T must strength­en its own eco­nom­ic safe­guards, en­cour­age in­vest­ment and cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for job cre­ation and ex­port de­vel­op­ment.

San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Abrahim Ali al­so be­lieves the elec­tion re­sults could have im­pli­ca­tions for in­ter­na­tion­al trade.

Ali is par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ed in how a De­mo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled Con­gress could in­flu­ence the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tar­iff poli­cies and the move­ment of goods be­tween the US and its trad­ing part­ners.

He be­lieves the out­come could cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for coun­tries that have been af­fect­ed by the high­er tar­iffs, al­though the ex­tent of any change re­mains un­cer­tain.

For T&T, he not­ed the en­er­gy sec­tor re­quires par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion, giv­en its im­por­tance to the coun­try’s ex­port earn­ings and in­ter­na­tion­al trade re­la­tion­ships.

Ali al­so point­ed to geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing the war in­volv­ing Iran, and their im­pact on fu­el prices, trade re­stric­tions, and the glob­al eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

In Ju­ly, T&T, along with Cari­com neigh­bours the Ba­hamas and Guyana, were among 17 coun­tries fac­ing fresh ten per cent US tar­iffs.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed the new du­ties on im­ports from 60 trad­ing part­ners over con­cerns about the en­force­ment of bans on goods pro­duced through forced labour.

How­ev­er, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs sub­se­quent­ly clar­i­fied that T&T had not been sub­ject­ed to a 12.5 per cent tar­iff.

The min­istry main­tained that Gov­ern­ment en­gage­ment had se­cured a re­duc­tion in the ap­plic­a­ble rate from 15 per cent, im­posed in Au­gust 2025, to ten per cent.

Al­so weigh­ing in on the mat­ter, Caribbean En­er­gy Cham­ber CEO Eu­gene Tiah urged cau­tion in in­ter­pret­ing the elec­tion re­sults.

Tiah be­lieves the change in con­gres­sion­al con­trol could place greater re­stric­tions on the Pres­i­dent’s abil­i­ty to ad­vance cer­tain poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly where leg­isla­tive ap­proval is re­quired.

“There will be more con­trols there, and it doesn’t mean that there are cer­tain things that can’t still be pushed for­ward with ex­ec­u­tive or­ders,” Tiah ex­plained.

He cau­tioned against draw­ing firm con­clu­sions about the im­pact on tar­iffs with­out a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of the US leg­isla­tive frame­work and which de­ci­sions re­quire con­gres­sion­al ap­proval.