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The Gov­er­nor of the US Vir­gin Is­lands (USVI), Al­bert Bryan Jr has re­quest­ed an emer­gency ses­sion with his leg­is­la­ture to dis­cuss im­pos­ing a 25% tar­iff on im­ports from the British Vir­gin Is­lands and in­tro­duc­ing trav­el fees for non-res­i­dents cross­ing be­tween the two ter­ri­to­ries.

Ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished by the VI Con­sor­tium yes­ter­day, the pro­pos­al, which aims to ad­dress eco­nom­ic im­bal­ances and pro­tect lo­cal busi­ness­es, was re­vealed in a let­ter sent to Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mil­ton Pot­ter.

“This dis­cus­sion is cru­cial to en­sur­ing fair trade and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty for the U.S. Vir­gin Is­lands,” Bryan stat­ed. “For too long, we have ex­pe­ri­enced eco­nom­ic leak­age and in­con­sis­ten­cies in our trade re­la­tion­ship with the BVI. It is time we take de­ci­sive ac­tion to pro­tect our lo­cal in­dus­tries, gen­er­ate rev­enue for es­sen­tial ser­vices, and cre­ate a more bal­anced reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work,” he ar­gued.