Trinidad and To­ba­go’s two largest busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions have wel­comed the re­duc­tion in Unit­ed States tar­iffs on lo­cal ex­ports, de­scrib­ing the move as a boost for ex­porters while warn­ing that busi­ness­es must con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing an in­creas­ing­ly un­cer­tain glob­al trad­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce yes­ter­day an­nounced the cre­ation of a Trade Da­ta Desk to as­sess the im­pact of chang­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trade poli­cies af­ter wel­com­ing con­fir­ma­tion that this coun­try’s ex­ports now qual­i­fy for the low­est ap­plic­a­ble tar­iff rate un­der the Unit­ed States’ Sec­tion 301 mea­sures.

On Fri­day, T&T was named among 17 coun­tries fac­ing the 10 per cent US tar­iffs as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed fresh du­ties on im­ports from 60 trad­ing part­ners, af­ter it stat­ed that the coun­tries had not ad­e­quate­ly en­forced a ban on goods pro­duced with forced labour.