President of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) of Jamaica, Ron McKay, has praised the new United States-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act, which aims to improve trade relations between the United States and its Caribbean neighbours.

“It’s the first Bill that has referred to the actual term diaspora in the history of any legislation with the United States of America,” McKay told the Jamaica Observer.

The Bill, referred to as ‘H.R.4939, the United States-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act of 2016’, declares that it is US policy to increase engagement with the governments of the Caribbean region, the Caribbean diaspora community in the US, and the private sector and civil society in both the United States and the Caribbean as a long-term strategy to strengthen ties between the countries.

The initiative is aimed at recognising that there is a strong relationship between migrants to the US and their native countries, and that these people have since become a part of the business world through financial trade ad commerce with their home countries.

According to McKay, it is a very historical Bill for the United States, Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, and the countries’ trade relations, as this will address specifically trade surplus between the Caribbean markets and the US. Up to October, Jamaica’s import bill from the US totalled US$1.4 million, while exports stood at US$239 million, a decline of US$22 million over 2015.

TRADE UNDER TRUMP

McKay went on to address concerns about US President -elect Donald Trump’s views on the implementation of a protection-oriented trade policy for US businesses that move their operation outside of the US, but still have majority of its customers based in the US, to face heavy taxation measures upon returning to the country.

“At this point its all conversation; it’s not even a legislation or executive order. So I think it’s very premature for people to jump to any conclusions,” McKay told the

Caribbean Business Report.

Trump reckons that the movement of production to other countries which provide cheaper labour rates or production costs does not allow for a level playing field for competing US companies looking to export.

The agenda is to create incentives for jobs staying or returning to the United States. But it has raised concerns for some companies in the information, communication and technology sector, including business process outsourcing units which have moved operations from the US to capitalise on offerings in Jamaica.

The sector is currently experiencing rapid growth in Jamaica, accounting for more than 14,000 jobs, and enjoy the highest employment growth rate of any sub-sector over the past decade. It is estimated at roughly US$250 million in value.

“But I will say that as president of Amcham, I represent 80 per cent of the American foreign direct investment community here in Jamaica, and we are part of the largest business chamber in the world combined with a memorandum of understanding of our relationship with the CCAA [Caribbean Central American Action organisation]. These organisations exist to keep trade open between US and the region, and to accelerate trade it will be a major part of our initiative to make sure things like that would not go into effect to affect us,”

He was quick to point out that what the president-elect is particularly concerned about is countries that the US has a trade deficit with, like China. In the case of Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, McKay noted that the countries have the largest trade surplus per capita with the US in the world.

“It’s not a concern for the president-elect to try to do any type of policy that would stiffen any trade between a country that the United States has a trade surplus with,” he said.