r/Jamaica • u/Sensitive-Pie-6595 • 3d ago

Economy Tariffs shouldn't really Hurt us

Those who live in Yard know that for so long we have been creating our own products, and buying from anywhere but the US. This goes back to the 1980s when America would give us 'string loans'... that is... they loan us $X but it can only be used to buy American products.

There was a time when in a supermarket big loooong aisles full of US stuff.

Over the years we started to quietly replace them with local products so that we didn't those loans.

We also started buying from other islands so that we had stuff from T'dad and of course, China.

Just before Trump did his tariff thing I looked at where my stuff came from.

Okay, everything that plugs in comes from China. Almost all my clothes come from China.

Now, my groceries.

I buy local stuff and stuff that comes from T'dad and every where else. Like this yogurt I use on my cereal comes from France, the other from Spain and the cereal is Jamaican. The coffee is Jamaican and I use Lasco instead of coffee mate.

The kind of flat breads/wraps i use are made in Jamaica as are the vegetables, soup, porridge, chocolate... in fact... I read labels before purchase.

if you look on the roads we have Toyota, Sukuzi... I haven't seen a US car since some years ago this Dodge.

I think Jamaica is not going to suffer very much because we wisely moved to standing on our own.

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u/zenoslayer 3d ago

What are you talking about? This is going to affect us.

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u/Sensitive-Pie-6595 3d ago

so we buy more from Canada and other places... why not?

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u/Green-Jellyfish7360 3d ago

Switching buyers and exporters is not as simple as changing which gas station you get gas cause the one up the road is cheaper than your usual one… There are products lined up right now to be exported that will cost a lot more than they did one week ago to import/export. Global trade is not just a “oh it’s more difficult here, let me switch”. It’s millions to billions of dollars. Maybe go and read up on how tariffs work before making such blanket statements and assumptions. It’s the same assumption trump is making by saying US car companies can produce in the US for much cheaper. Which is just not true and if it were they would have been manufacturing in the US from the beginning. The tariffs will definitely affect us in more ways than one.

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u/Sensitive-Pie-6595 3d ago

be positive... no one is panicking here... must be a reason