“Extremely stupid” for Guyana to impose retaliatory tariffs against US – Jagdeo

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has contended that it would be “extremely stupid” for Guyana to impose retaliatory tariffs against the United States of America.

The US was moving to apply 38% tariff on Guyana’s goods imported into their country. But US President Donald Trump had announced a 90-day pause on the introduction these tariffs on a number of countries, including Guyana.

Nevertheless, VP Jagdeo said the Government of Guyana continues to work with the United States to address the issue.

However, he said, it will not be moving to institute retaliatory tariffs against the US.

“How could a country like ours with a bilateral trade like we have with the United States of America plan retaliatory tariffs against the United States of America as one of the menu of measures to address this matter?” he questioned during his press conference on Thursday.

In fact, Jagdeo said persons would have to be “extremely stupid” to hold that view.

“What are you going to retaliate against? Even the big countries in the world fear this…Mexico, Canada, European Union are cautious with retaliatory measures,” he added.

Jagdeo noted that his administration is pursuing the path of diplomacy to resolve the issue.

In fact, he disclosed that Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh recently met with the US trade representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer where the matter was discussed.

“He was in Washington and he had a good meeting discussing our views on this matter. It is the quiet diplomacy that we’ll work through and working with the US government so that they understand why the trade surplus arose,” he noted, referring to Guyana’s export of crude oil.

US President Donald Trump had in April signed an Executive Order instituting various percentages of tariffs for countries around the world. The Government of Guyana attributed its 38% tariff to the fact that Guyana exports more to the US than it imports, but added that this is due to the large amount of crude oil exported to that country by US oil company ExxonMobil, the lead operator offshore Guyana.

However, after Trump’s change in policy, Guyana and other countries – except China – now face a baseline tariff of 10%.

Following the initial announcement of the 38% tariffs however, the Guyana Government had engaged local exporters and assured that despite the outcome, measures will be put in place to ensure they remain competitive.

“Should we not succeed, we have explored a number of measures that we intend to pursue that would allow our exporters to still remain competitive in the US,” the Vice President again assured on Thursday.

Guyana’s largest exports to the US are petroleum crude, gold and aluminum ore which are exempted from the tariffs. In 2024, it was reported that crude total $3.1B, aluminum ore total $36.9M and gold total $16.6M while other major exports like fish, molasses, sugar, alcoholic beverages and wood products range from $19M to $2.7M.