Well…well…well!! Here it was your Eyewitness thought we and the Yanks were besties in the wake of Secty of State Marco Rubio’s effusive comments after his visit to our dear ole Mudland!! Apart from channelling Dirty Harry to warn off Mad Maduro – “It’s gonna be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime if they were to attack Guyana” – he praised us to the sky!! “There’s no other place with the kind of horizons you have over the next five to ten years! We’re neighbours, we’ll always be neighbours, and we want to build on that partnership in a way that’s mutually beneficial.”
But your Eyewitness is reeling from Pres Trump’s announcement that our exports to the US will now be hit with a “reciprocal tariff” of 38%!! “GUYANA” was smack in the middle of the America’s “Day of Liberation” chart of countries accused of slapping tariffs on American imports!! The chart declared we were applying 78% tariffs on their goods, so whatever goods we export to the US will now have a 38% markup to US customers, since importers certainly ain’t gonna swallow their govt’s tariff, which they have to cough up!! The said customers would almost certainly then buy less of our exported goods, and we won’t earn as much of the greenbacks as we need to run our economy!! Not good…not good at all from a friend!!
But hey!! Pres Trump did warn us about this move, and he wasn’t just picking on us. Even Britain – which for a century had a “special relationship” – had tariffs slapped on their exports to America. But the second thought that hit your Eyewitness – after the shock of seeing us on the list – was “what the heck do we import from the US that we slap on a 78% tariff??” With Google at his fingertips, he saw that out of US$2.57 billion imports during 2024, right on top of the list for 2024 were “machinery, boilers – $705.8M; mineral fuels, oils, distillation products – $558.05M; articles of iron or steel – $353.96M; electrical, electronic equipment $217.84M; aircraft, spacecraft – $86.19M;
optical, photo, technical, medical apparatus – $76.24M!!
So, did the equipment for the Wales gas-to-shore power plant earn a 78% tariff? But since we’re taking a US$526 million loan from the US ExIm Bank to pay for the said machinery, why would we slap a tariff on top of the price?? Doesn’t make sense!!
Then there’re the petroleum products like gasolene etc. The Government has assured us it’s been trying to keep down the cost of these products – and as a matter of fact, has REDUCED taxes on them. Doesn’t make sense again!!
Did we slap tariffs on US fish for banning our Gillbacker?
…pipsqueak
So, what do we export to the US that’s gonna now cost 38% more? Back to old, reliable Google – while your old-fashioned Eyewitness gets used to Microsoft AI “co-pilot”, which he studiously avoids. Trust issues!! Now, on top of THAT list of US$3.37 billion “Exports to United States in 2024” was $3.18 billion of petroleum products!! That’s the oil ExxonMobil ships from our Stabroek Block to its Louisiana refineries!! Since Trump’s goal is to get gas prices down at the pumps, is he gonna slap a 38% tariff on Exxon’s oil??
On the matter of that Gillbacker ban, under the category of “Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatics invertebrates”, we ship in a mere US$22.27 million of Banga Mary, Snapper, Snook etc, along with white-belly shrimp that qualifies in the “crustaceans” category!! Guess those Guyanese who live in Reg 11 – documented and undocumented! – gonna have to dig deeper in their pockets.
Your Eyewitness thought that “wood” might be big, but that’s a mere $7.1M – compared with $19M “aircraft and spacecraft”!!
…to doublespeak
The GHRA’s bawling about alleged “attacks” by the PPP government against it and other NGOs – because they’ll be reviewing the funding of such organizations.
Isn’t the PPP merely following its democratic model in the US Govt??
