CPSO welcomes the removal of US tariffs on key CARICOM exports

The CARI­COM Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CP­SO) says it wel­comes the de­ci­sion of the Unit­ed States to re­move tar­iffs on key Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) ex­port sec­tors, say­ing it will bring “im­por­tant re­lief” to re­gion­al in­dus­tries that had been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs im­ple­ment­ed ear­li­er this year.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had first im­ple­ment­ed the tar­iffs in April and up­dat­ed the mea­sure in Au­gust.

“This de­ci­sion is both time­ly and con­se­quen­tial. It re­in­forces the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports in the chem­i­cals sec­tor, which in­cludes fer­tilis­ers and re­lat­ed down­stream prod­ucts,” said CP­SO chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Dr. Patrick An­toine.

“It sta­bilis­es key agri­cul­tur­al and agro-pro­cess­ing sup­ply chains across CARI­COM and pro­vides tar­get­ed re­lief where it is most need­ed. For Ja­maica, a ma­jor ex­porter of agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts to the Unit­ed States, this re­lief comes at a crit­i­cal mo­ment, as the na­tion’s agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor re­quires all pos­si­ble sup­port to re­build its pro­duc­tion in­fra­struc­ture in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.”

An­toine said that “this out­come demon­strates that when the Com­mu­ni­ty acts in a uni­fied and co­or­di­nat­ed man­ner to­ward a shared pur­pose, pos­i­tive out­comes are achieved for the peo­ple of CARI­COM.

“The No­vem­ber 14, 2025, Ex­ec­u­tive Or­der while re­flect­ing US do­mes­tic pri­or­i­ties, al­so re­in­forces the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the CARI­COM as a key in­ter­locu­tor with the Unit­ed States and high­lights the im­por­tance of align­ing re­gion­al po­si­tions in pur­suit of com­mon pur­pos­es,” he added.

The CP­SO said it had pre­vi­ous­ly es­ti­mat­ed that the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs would cost CARI­COM mem­ber states US$653.6 mil­lion in ex­port rev­enue an­nu­al­ly, with the largest ex­po­sures con­cen­trat­ed in the base met­als, agri­cul­ture and food and chem­i­cals sec­tors.

An­toine, who is al­so the CP­SO’s tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor, said that the co­or­di­nat­ed ad­vo­ca­cy of CARI­COM lead­ers played a piv­otal role in se­cur­ing the with­draw­al of the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs, say­ing that they had all en­gaged Unit­ed States coun­ter­parts on the ur­gency of ad­dress­ing the tar­iff mea­sures af­fect­ing agri­cul­ture, chem­i­cals and oth­er crit­i­cal ex­ports.

The CP­SO said that the bur­den of the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs fell most heav­i­ly on the agri­cul­ture and food and chem­i­cals sec­tors with a CP­SO study es­ti­mat­ing po­ten­tial an­nu­al ex­port rev­enue loss­es of US$117.7 mil­lion for agri­cul­ture and US$86.1 mil­lion for chem­i­cals.

The CP­SO said that the No­vem­ber 14 ex­ec­u­tive or­der by Pres­i­dent Trump elim­i­nates the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs and re­vers­es the pre­vi­ous rates ap­plied un­der the Amer­i­ca First trade mea­sures.

It said that among the prod­ucts now ex­empt­ed from the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs are am­mo­nia, urea am­mo­ni­um ni­trate (UAN), both es­sen­tial fer­tilis­ers wide­ly used across glob­al agri­cul­ture, as well as methanol and se­lect­ed agri-food prod­ucts.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go, which is CARI­COM’s lead­ing in­dus­tri­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­porter, had been the mem­ber state most af­fect­ed with­in the chem­i­cals sec­tor and stands to ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the with­draw­al of the US tar­iffs,” the CP­SO said.

The CP­SO said the US re­mains CARI­COM’s prin­ci­pal trade and eco­nom­ic part­ner and that the re­moval of the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs will, there­fore, con­tribute to the strength­en­ing of the US-CARI­COM trade re­la­tion­ship.

It said that dur­ing the US’ Caribbean Basin Eco­nom­ic Re­cov­ery Act (CBERA) Bi­en­ni­al Re­view Process, which was un­der­tak­en in Ju­ly 2025, the CP­SO made a sub­mis­sion to the Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (US­TR) out­lin­ing the neg­a­tive im­pli­ca­tions for CARI­COM’s ex­port sec­tors of the im­po­si­tion of the rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iff regime.

The CP­SO said that even as the or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to un­der­take work aimed at mea­sur­ing the im­pact of the re­main­ing tar­iffs on re­gion­al ex­ports, An­toine not­ed that with the re­moval of these key tar­iffs, a sub­stan­tial por­tion of CARI­COM’s ex­ports to the Unit­ed States will ben­e­fit im­me­di­ate­ly.

“While the CP­SO wel­comes the re­moval of the tar­iffs on a sub­stan­tial part of the re­gion’s agri­cul­ture and Chem­i­cal ex­ports, the or­gan­i­sa­tion will con­tin­ue to work with the CARI­COM heads of mem­ber states to as­sist with the elim­i­na­tion of the re­main­ing tar­iffs af­fect­ing CARI­COM’s ex­ports to the US.”

The CP­SO said that it re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing CARI­COM lead­ers and the re­gion­al pri­vate sec­tor in ad­vanc­ing so­lu­tions that strength­en trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, en­hance com­pet­i­tive­ness and bol­ster long-term eco­nom­ic re­silience.

CMC/ag/ir/2025

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Nov 24, CMC -