WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) – St Vincent and the Grenadines Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves, says the government is looking to broaden its tourism base to reduce the impact of the tariffs announced recently by the United States President, Donald Trump.

Trump has announced far-reaching new tariffs on nearly all US trading partners ranging from a 125 per cent tax on imports from China and 20 per cent on the European Union, among others, in a move economists and other traders say is designed to dismantle much of the architecture of the global economy and trigger broader trade wars.

In the case of the Caribbean, including St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trump announced a 10 per cent tariff, while in the case of Guyana, the tariff is as high as 38 per cent.

However, the Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Timothy Antoine, said that the impact of the levy on US tourist arrivals in the Caribbean is expected to be felt later this year, into 2026.

Gonsalves and Antoine attended a meeting between the ministers of finance and central bank governors from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the Spring Meetings, which wraps up here later on Friday.

Gonsalves told the media that the discussion was “very useful discussion, as usual”, particularly regarding the IMF’s revised economic forecast in its World Economic Outlook and the policy shifts in the United States.

He noted that the World Economic Outlook released by the IMF on Tuesday has increased the likelihood of global recession from about 25 to about 40 per cent.

“There’s still a lot of variables. We don’t know where the US administration will ultimately fall, whether they pause, whether they revise, whether they have additional trade deals, so we’re very much in flux.”

He said St Vincent and the Grenadines and other tourist-dependent countries in the Caribbean are heavily reliant on US tourism, adding that there is a strong correlation between recessions in the US and negative impacts in the region.

Gonsalves said inflation of one per cent in the United States has a direct impact of 0.5 per cent on his country’s tourism sector.

“And so we’re very, very concerned about it. What we’re trying to do is to expand our tourism base, try to get tourists from outside of the US region, to diversify. Fifty per cent of our tourists currently come from the US. We’re trying to make that less heavily dependent,” Gonsalves said.

“And of course, we’re trying to grow our economy through other fields as well, to make our economy more resilient to the ultimate declines, though, as a cyclical movement, in tourism activity.”

Gonsalves noted that revised economic forecasts are predicted to impact the Caribbean region.

“So we had a discussion about their analysis of the impact and what we believe as the Caribbean constituency, the fund can do to improve their relationship with the Caribbean region, to support us in light of what will likely be negative impacts and to chart a way forward,” the finance minister said.

He said the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is going to have a separate group encounter with US foreign affairs and trade officials in the coming weeks.

“And we’re going to make our case, but we are cognisant of the headwinds that we’re facing in this regard,” Gonsalves added.