Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Senator Aubyn Hill speaking at Wednesday's post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)
Not our fight
Jamaica not interested in trade war with US
INDUSTRY, Investment and Commerce Minister Senator Aubyn Hill says Jamaica’s geographic location has given it a unique competitive advantage even as it remains on the fringes of the “tariff battle” being waged by the Donald Trump Administration.
“Thank God, if there’s any thanking to be had, that we are at the lower level of the tariff range,” said Hill.
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Trump, after an extraordinary week of global panic since he announced the levies on what he called “Liberation Day”, dropped his country-specific tariffs down to a universal 10 per cent for all trading partners, except China, which he punished with even higher levies of 125 per cent.
AFP reported Wednesday night that China and the European Union adopted retaliatory tariffs against US goods, fuelling fresh market volatility.
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China also said it would blacklist six American artificial intelligence firms, including Shield AI and Sierra Nevada Corp.
The European Union announced measures targeting more than 20 billion euros’ worth of US products, including soybeans, motorcycles and beauty products, starting April 15.
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The levies are in retaliation for US duties on global steel and aluminium exports imposed last month.
Jamaica and Caribbean neighbours Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, and St Kitts-Nevis, among others, were being slapped with a 10 per cent tariff for exports to the United States.
Speaking at Wednesday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew, an upbeat industry minister said Jamaica was exploring the “opportunities” presented by the crisis; some of which emerged from linkages made during the just-concluded Expo-Jamaica 2025.
Expo-Jamaica is the largest exhibition and trade show in the English-speaking Caribbean held every two years. The flagship event showcases the diversity, quality and innovation of Jamaican goods and services across a wide array of industries — agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, technology, logistics, and the creative industries — and typically attracts a general audience of 16,000 to 20,000 Jamaican patrons.
On Wednesday, Hill said the expo, which provides Jamaican businesses the opportunity to present their products and services directly to high-potential domestic and foreign buyers, while serving as a tool for promoting trade and investment by connecting exporters with buyers distributors and investors from across the globe, saw buyers from about 25 countries attending the event which was held between April 4 and 6.
“I am just leaving a meeting with a prospective incoming BPO (business process outsourcing) company and they’re so happy. They have businesses in all parts of Asia [and] they’re so happy to come here to Jamaica. They’re going to deal with one of our high-level BPO operators here and the proximity is great, especially at this time when the issue of tariffs is so much in the air,” Hill told the briefing.
He said the markets of the 25 countries that visited the expo “represent strategic trade opportunities for Jamaica, especially within Caricom”.
He highlighted the diaspora markets and global supply chains seeking nearshoring solutions, noting Jamaica’s geographical proximity to the largest market in the world that it has been supplying for a long time.
“The geographic location is so fantastic now it is becoming so vital, because people are now looking to come to Jamaica as a place to invest nearshore and set up companies,” Hill said.
In the meantime, the industry minister said the opportunities in the financial services industry are yet to be tapped by Jamaica.
“Financial services is something Jamaica is going to have to grow into to become the rich country we must be, because we cannot continue to sell to less than three million people with a per capita GDP of less than 7,000 and become rich. We have to find new markets. The existing ones are good but they haven’t made us rich. We have to find new ones, rich ones, to make sure we can sell more goods and services…” he said.
