Q COSTARICA — Costa Rica President Rodrigo Chaves explained away on Wednesday why he believes the United States increased taxes on Costa Rican products by up to 15%, despite the “close” relationship he boasts about with the Donald Trump administration.
At his weekly briefing following a cabinet session, insisting on the supposedly privileged relationship between the U.S. and Costa Rican authorities, Chaves said that Costa Rica received this tariff increase due to its trade surplus with the U.S. market, regardless of friendships.
“This is not a matter of friendship, nor is it a matter of closeness or collaboration. They used a rule: we’re going to raise the tariff for those who sell to us more than we sell them and maintain it for those who sell more to them,” Chaves said when a journalist asked him about the decision announced last week by Donald Trump.
Despite this cold explanation about the measure, which is detrimental to Costa Rica, Chaves again appealed to the “close” bilateral relations, as he described them last week, to try to reverse the decision.
“We have all communication mechanisms open with our main ally,” he said after reporting that on Friday, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Manuel Tovar, sent a letter to Washington requesting a temporary suspension of the tariffs. However, there has been no response yet.
The Trump administration ordered this new tariff scale after announcing an initial 10% tariff in April, and Chaves reacted by saying that “it’s not catastrophic” nor does it put Costa Rica at a disadvantage compared to other countries, as that was the lower rate.
There are other countries with a less than 1% share of U.S. imports, the same as Costa Rica, with lower tariffs than what products from Costa Rica must pay.
For example, as of August 6, products from Latin American countries such as Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Honduras, Uruguay, El Salvador, Paraguay, Belize, and Cuba, have an imposed tariff rate of 10%.
Source link
Rico
