Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed this afternoon that Guyana was one of the country’s that reached out to the United States Government for dialogue on the reciprocal tariffs, which were announced by U.S President Donald Trump.

Last week, the US President announced sweeping tariffs on imports from several countries, including Guyana, which was slapped with a 38% tariff rate.

The US President has since paused the tariffs for 90 days for more than 70 countries while also reducing the tariff rate for most of them to 10%.

Mr. Jagdeo said Guyana welcomes the announcement by President Trump as the Government believes that it has evidence to show that Guyana imports more from the U.S than it exports

“We still believe that it is through engagement with the United States of America that we can resolve this matter and that will be our approach and we have all the facts ready to present  in the engagement, we are also meeting with the exporters who will be affected, a large amount of our exports are exempted but there are some crucial sectors that could be badly affected the Agriculture sector and their exports, so we are meeting the exporters to understand the impact of any potential tariff,” Mr. Jagdeo stated.

The Vice President said Guyana will work with the US to examine all the facts surrounding the matter and is hoping for a meeting at some point.

“Thankfully we got two signals from the US government to conclude it, one is that the Tariff is on hold for 90 days and President Trump himself said he is looking to talk to country and we are ready to talk to them on this matter, so that is the approach we are going to take on these matters,” Mr. Jagdeo noted.

Mr. Jagdeo said the US remains a crucial market for Guyanese products. He once again called on exporters and manufacturers not to panic.

According to the Vice President, while the bulk of Guyana’s exports to the US will not attract the tariffs, there are some smaller sectors that will be impacted if the tariff goes through at whatever rate.

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