The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment Wednes­day warned that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a 10 per cent tar­iff by the Unit­ed States on goods and ser­vices ex­port­ed from the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try “could po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­ence both trade flows and vis­i­tor ar­rivals.”

“The Unit­ed States re­mains The Ba­hamas’ prin­ci­pal trad­ing part­ner, ac­count­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 83.3 per cent of our to­tal im­ports in 2024, val­ued at an es­ti­mat­ed five bil­lion US dol­lars.

“This long­stand­ing eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship is al­so re­flect­ed in our tourism sec­tor, where, in 2024, 84 per cent of our stopover vis­i­tors orig­i­nat­ed from the Unit­ed States,” Prime Min­is­ter Phillip Davis said as he pre­sent­ed the US$3.89 bil­lion bud­get to Par­lia­ment.

In April, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced far-reach­ing new tar­iffs on near­ly all US trad­ing part­ners in a move econ­o­mists and oth­er traders say is de­signed to dis­man­tle much of the ar­chi­tec­ture of the glob­al econ­o­my and trig­ger broad­er trade wars.

In the case of the Caribbean, Trump an­nounced a 10 per cent tar­iff on most re­gion­al coun­tries, while in the case of Guyana, the tar­iff is as high, as 38 per cent.

Prime Min­is­ter Davis told leg­is­la­tors that while the close re­la­tion­ship Nas­sau shares with Wash­ing­ton has yield­ed con­sid­er­able ben­e­fits, it al­so un­der­scores the Caribbean coun­try’s  ex­po­sure to de­vel­op­ments in the US econ­o­my.

“Any slow­down or height­ened eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty in that mar­ket can have a di­rect im­pact on Ba­hami­an trade and tourism. This sen­si­tiv­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant con­sid­er­ing re­cent pol­i­cy an­nounce­ments from the Unit­ed States, specif­i­cal­ly, the pro­posed im­po­si­tion of a 10 per cent tar­iff on all Caribbean na­tions, in­clud­ing The Ba­hamas.

“Such a mea­sure, if im­ple­ment­ed, could po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­ence both trade flows and vis­i­tor ar­rivals. In this con­text, the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing con­struc­tive di­a­logue with our US and CARI­COM part­ners to ad­dress the im­pli­ca­tions of this pol­i­cy shift in a man­ner that pro­tects and pro­motes mu­tu­al eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests,” Davis said.

He said well be­fore the elec­tion of the cur­rent US Pres­i­dent,  the Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment had tak­en proac­tive steps to strength­en the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic re­silience through the adop­tion of a Na­tion­al Trade Pol­i­cy.

“This pol­i­cy lays the foun­da­tion for a trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion frame­work that seeks to broad­en our ex­port base and re­duce overde­pen­dence on any sin­gle mar­ket. At the core of these ef­forts is a com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that glob­al trade de­vel­op­ments do not un­du­ly dis­ad­van­tage Ba­hami­an busi­ness­es or con­sumers.”

Prime Min­is­ter Davis said that the gov­ern­ment has al­so been col­lab­o­rat­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor to ex­plore en­hanced trade op­por­tu­ni­ties with Cana­da, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ghana, and In­dia, while al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing new ship­ping chan­nels and lo­gis­tics so­lu­tions.

“Let me share one ex­am­ple: the av­er­age price of a dozen eggs in The Ba­hamas cur­rent­ly stands at US$3.79. In com­par­i­son, dur­ing the pe­ri­od when eggs were pri­mar­i­ly im­port­ed from the Unit­ed States, prices soared to as much as US$10 per dozen eggs due to the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of bird flu on the Amer­i­can poul­try in­dus­try.

“In re­sponse, with gov­ern­ment sup­port the pri­vate sec­tor was able to shift its sourc­ing to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, which not on­ly sta­bilised sup­ply but al­so re­sult­ed in sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits for Ba­hami­an con­sumers by re­duc­ing costs.”

Prime Min­is­ter Davis said the Gold­en Yoke pro­gramme had a ben­e­fi­cial im­pact on pric­ing, not­ing that cur­rent­ly, the price of eggs in Flori­da av­er­ages around US$5.60 per dozen.

“The fact that Ba­hami­an con­sumers are pay­ing less high­lights the pos­i­tive im­pact and strate­gic ad­van­tage of di­ver­si­fy­ing our trade part­ner­ships,” he said.

NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas, May 28, CMC

CMC/ah/ir/2025