Energy Minister Stuart Young and Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon on Wednesday welcomed a ruling by the United States Trade Commission not to impose any tariffs on fertilisers from Trinidad and Tobago.
A Reuters report said the commission revoked hefty anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on urea ammonium nitrate fertilisers from Russia and TT on Monday, concluding that those imports did not hurt American producers.
The decision cancelled recently-imposed US combined anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of up to 132.6 per cent on Russian urea nitrate fertiliser solutions and 113.5 per cent on such imports from TT.
In 2021, the US imported $231.1 million worth of urea ammonium nitrate from TT, according to the US Commerce Department. Urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) is used in liquid fertilisers.
The report said, had the commission found that US fertiliser producers were being negatively affected by the imports from Russia and TT, the duties would have been locked in for five years.
In a statement issued on Monday, Proman and MHTL (Methanol Holdings (Trinidad) Ltd) welcomed the ruling.
Proman, headquartered in Switzerland, is the world's second largest producer of methanol and has assets in several countries, including TT. MHTL, with a AUM (ammonia, urea ammonium nitrate, melamine) complex in Point Lisas, is part of the Proman group.
The statement read in part, "Fertiliser products like UAN play a vital role in supporting agricultural production and meeting global food supply needs. We believe that today's judgment reflected testimony from across the US agricultural sector that application of these duties would have resulted in significant supply constrictions in an already concentrated domestic market, particularly during the planting season when imports are essential to meeting fertiliser requirements.
"As the sole UAN producer and exporter in Trinidad and Tobago, this decision will enable us to resume UAN exports to the United States, providing much-needed relief to supply constraints in that market."
In a statement, Young said issues involving fertilisers produced in TT were discussed by the Prime Minister and himself when they met decision makers in Washington DC at different levels and in many different quarters over the last few months.
"This decision of the US International Trade Commission in favour of Trinidad and Tobago is a welcomed one."
When he returned from the US in June after the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, Dr Rowley said the US and Caricom agreed to the formation of joint committees to deal with several issues of mutual interest. The agreement on the US side came from US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
One of them is a US/Caribbean energy security committee. Rowley co-chaired that committee's first meeting on July 12. He was nominated by other Caricom leaders to be the committee's co-chairman.
A statement issued by the Office of the Prime Minister on July 12 said Rowley will lead efforts to develop a joint action plan to a
