r/Jamaica 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/stewartm0205 Kingston 2d ago

I lived in the States and most of the stuff we buy is from China. The cars are from Europe and Japan. We only buy food and drinks locally. We are in for a world of hurt.

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u/Sensitive-Pie-6595 2d ago

oh yes.. all that has to happen is for China to leave out the US and ship directly to all other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Instead of shipping from China to the US it ships to Mexico or another nation, then on to the other nations.

In my country they have been making a lot of local food stuff to avoid US.

This tariff thing is going to go extremely badly for the US, much worse than for other nations