LCN Newsroom · News Analysis

Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud says the 12.5 per cent tariff changes nothing, because oil and gold are exempt and the rate is lower than last year’s. He is right about the money, almost all of which is oil. He is wrong about the businesses, almost all of which are not.

Guyana’s government says the new 12.5 per cent US tariff imposes no new burden on exporters because it is lower than the rates that preceded it and because oil, gas and gold are exempt. That is true at the national level, where oil is almost the entire export figure. It is not true for rum, seafood and processed-food producers, who are inside the tariff and whose combined US sales are a rounding error in the national total. The government is pursuing an exemption while a reciprocal trade agreement is negotiated.