As Fiji, along with the other countries, have been given a 90-day reprieve before the higher ‘retaliatory tariff’ of 32 percent imposed by the United States comes into effect, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade Manoa Kamikamica is confident that we should be able to agree on a way forward well before the window closes on the 9th of July.
In his ministerial statement in Parliament this morning, Kamikamica says over 18,000 smallholder farmers rely on the kava industry, more than 5,000 farmers depend on ginger, turmeric, and skin care value chains and approximately 11,000 farmers are engaged in the sugarcane industry.
The Deputy Prime Minister says on a weighted average basis, the average tariff on U.S. imports stands at 1.8 percent.
He says if one looks at Fiji's exports, or in other words, the U.S. imports from Fiji in proportion to total U.S. imports, which amounted to $4.1 trillion in 2024, our proportion is merely 0.0001 percent.
Kamikamica says as such, while the position of the People's Coalition is that they understand the desire of the U.S. to impose tariffs, they seek proportionality, fairness, and reasonableness.
The Deputy Prime Minister says following their meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji, Marie Damour on the 14th of April, their trade team, led by the Permanent Secretary, engaged swiftly in meetings with senior officials at the office of the United States Trade Representative and last Wednesday, a high-level meeting occurred between him and the United Nations Trade Representative Ambassador, Jamieson Greer.
Kamikamica says the meeting was positive, with both sides reaffirming the longstanding Fiji-US relationship and expressing a commitment to deepening trade cooperation.
He says Greer acknowledged Fiji as a good-faith trading partner and has proposed several areas of cooperation and they have both agreed to task the officials to advance technical discussions and maintain momentum towards a mutually beneficial outcome.
He says negotiations are expected to occur soon with the senior officials.
Kamikamica also stressed that well before the tariff action, Fiji has been progressively broadening its trade relations in the last 24 months with all its development partners.
The approval of the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, will provide access to the EU market under global sourcing provisions.
He says they have re-opened discussions with PACER Plus, and more recently discussions are underway on a regional economic partnership agreement with the UAE, which are just a few of the examples that they are working on at the moment, including potential membership at APEC.
While assuring the Opposition’s support in trying to ensure that the right thing happens with respect to trade with Fiji, Opposition MP Faiyaz Koya says there are some questions that need to be answered including why it took a little longer to react when we knew this was going to happen.
He says Fiji’s missions ought to have been on to it prior to the announcement being made, it was a delayed reaction and urgent meetings had to be called, especially in light of the fact that the trade balance with the U.S. lies in Fiji’s favour, attributable to Fiji Water.
Koya says the Prime Minister had stated they will have to make some tough decisions on how we trade and who we trade with and 63 percent tariff was proposed on exports to the U.S.
He says the Prime Minister had said the world is bigger than the US, so he is assuming that he is backing that up with opening up some more trade with some other countries.
The Opposition MP hopes that Fiji had some discussions along those lines with Singapore as trade with them is very easy.
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