How will Trump's tariffs affect Azerbaijan?

The notorious American tariffs, of course, may affect Azerbaijani exports to this country, but the impact will be insignificant. The US share in trade turnover is insubstantial, and the customs duty will not exceed the base rate of 10%, writes the newspaper "Caspian".

Perhaps the main event of the trade war declared by Donald Trump to the entire world was the new trade barriers. The tariff spring began to compress in early April: the American president announced the introduction of duties on goods imported from 185 countries around the world. For different countries, they vary from 10% to 49%, with Azerbaijan being included in the list of countries with the base duty.

Outside the risk zone

According to representatives of the local economic community, the new round of global trade war will not directly affect our country.

"The duties also apply to exports from Azerbaijan, but for us they do not exceed the 10 percent universal limit," comments MP and expert Vugar Bayramov on the prospects of the White House decision for exports. "Of course, in this regard, it is impossible to leave out the increased bilateral trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the USA in recent years. However, it is important to consider that our republic imports more from across the ocean."

For example, last year, says the parliamentarian, the import of American goods to Azerbaijan amounted to 1 billion 617 million dollars, while our exports to the USA did not exceed 135 million 30 thousand dollars. In other words, there is a significant negative balance in trade with the United States at the level of 1 billion 482 million dollars. Our country buys much more American products than it sells. Nevertheless, last year compared to the previous one, imports from the USA increased 1.8 times, and exports of local products to this country grew eightfold.

"Even despite the impressive growth dynamics, the export of Azerbaijani goods to the USA is generally insignificant. At the same time, new American duties will affect to a greater extent goods from the non-oil sector of the economy," explains V. Bayramov. "For example, according to last year's statistics, the export of local non-hydrocarbon products in this direction reached 134.663 million dollars, and only 55 million 949 thousand dollars account for goods of local origin. All this is a pittance compared to our total non-oil exports, which amounted to 3 billion 356 million dollars."

As a result, the expert is confident that Washington's tariff policy will not have a significant negative impact on the republic's foreign trade positions.

"Although Washington's tariff policy is unlikely to have a significant impact on exports from Azerbaijan to the USA, it may affect the overall growth dynamics of our bilateral trade," he believes. "In any case, we are now experiencing high dynamics in trade with America, but due to duties, the growth rate of our exports to the USA may decrease. Another outcome is quite possible. In fact, the products that we supply to the American market have some specificity. Therefore, the 10 percent tariff may not affect the positions of Azerbaijani goods. Mutually beneficial cooperation between the USA and Azerbaijan will deepen, contributing to regional stability.

Long-awaited pause

By the way, the White House recently announced a 90-day suspension of additional trade duties for most countries of the world - for those who did not respond with retaliatory measures against Washington. At the same time, an even greater increase in fees on imports from China was announced. Experts call the easing of trade tensions an important step towards stabilizing the global economy amid fears of a collapse in global stock and commodity markets.

After these White House statements