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With the Unit­ed States set to im­ple­ment rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs by Au­gust 1, 2025, Cari­com Chair An­drew Hol­ness says while talks with the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue, the time has come for the re­gion to take trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the Caribbean, more se­ri­ous­ly.

“And now, it’s not just a mat­ter of talk, it is an ur­gent mat­ter,” Hol­ness said at the clos­ing me­dia con­fer­ence for the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment at Cari­com here in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica.

On April 2, 2025, the US an­nounced a sweep­ing new slate of “rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs” on about 60 coun­tries or trad­ing blocs that had a high trade deficit with the Unit­ed States. This in­clud­ed a ten per cent base­line tar­iff on most im­port­ed goods from April 5, 2025.