Two leading Caribbean private sector entities, the Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) and its affiliated CPSO-US Business Council (CPSO-USBC), have formally submitted joint public comments to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in support of a proposed short-term extension of temporary Section 301 maritime fee suspensions, while simultaneously advocating for permanent, binding exemptions that shield the region’s fragile seaborne trade network from crippling cost hikes. Filed under USTR’s public docket USTR-2026-0694, the submission represents the collective voice of more than 6,250 private enterprises across the 15-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom).
The original Section 301 maritime service fees, levied on Chinese-built commercial vessels, first took effect on October 14, 2025, before USTR issued a one-year blanket suspension of the charges for Caribbean short-sea shipping routes running through November 9, 2026. USTR’s current preliminary proposal would extend that suspension for an additional two months, through January 9, 2027, a timeline the CPSO acknowledges as a welcome stopgap but insufficient to deliver long-term operational clarity for regional trade stakeholders.
The core carveouts the CPSO is fighting to formalize permanently, laid out in Annex II of the 2025 USTR Notice of Action, apply the fee exemption to five categories of vessel operations that underpin nearly 100% of the Caribbean’s U.S.-bound and U.S.-origin seaborne trade: voyages under 2,000 nautical miles between a foreign port and a U.S. continental port, fully cellular container ships with maximum capacity of 4,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) or less, non-container vessels with a deadweight tonnage of 55,000 or less, bulk carriers under 80,000 deadweight tons, and any vessel traveling empty or in ballast. The CPSO led the full regional advocacy push that secured these targeted exemptions during USTR’s 2025 rulemaking proceedings.
For the Caricom bloc, a collection of predominantly island and low-lying coastal states, these carveouts are not a discretionary trade benefit: more than 90% of all goods moving into and out of the region travel by sea, with no alternative road, rail, or pipeline infrastructure to facilitate cross-border commerce. Many smaller Caricom nations are served by as few as two or three liner shipping companies, leaving local importers, exporters, and consumers with no viable alternatives if service costs spike or carriers withdraw routes entirely. Before the 2025 exemptions were enacted, economic analysts projected the unadjusted Section 301 fees would have pushed freight rates on Caribbean trade lanes up by 50 to 60%, driving steep consumer price inflation across the region and eroding the competitive edge of U.S. agricultural, manufactured, and consumer goods in their closest regional export market.
The tangible economic and humanitarian benefits of the existing exemptions are already well-documented. Since the carveouts took effect in April 2025, no liner service serving a Caricom port has been discontinued, and no additional surcharges have been applied to any Caribbean-U.S. trade lanes. Full 2025 trade data shows two-way goods exchange between the U.S. and Caricom hit $30.1 billion, with U.S. exports alone climbing 6.6% year-over-year to $18.6 billion, delivering a $7 billion trade surplus for the United States. The exemptions have also proven critical for disaster response: in the aftermath of 2025’s devastating Hurricane Melissa, the same short-sea vessels protected under the carveouts delivered emergency food, shelter supplies, and construction materials directly from Florida to Jamaica within days of the storm making landfall, with no added fee burdens slowing relief efforts.
Dr. Patrick Antoine, CEO and Technical Director of the CPSO, emphasized the existential stakes of locking in permanent protections during the advocacy push. “These exemptions have kept supermarket shelves stocked across the Caribbean, kept U.S. products affordable and top-of-mind for 18 million Caribbean consumers, and ensured hurricane-ravaged communities do not face punitive new costs at the exact moment they need access to emergency supplies most,” Antoine stated. “Right now, our region’s entire trade ecosystem hangs on temporary, time-limited suspensions that can expire without warning, in negotiations that Caricom is not even formally party to. We are asking USTR to formalize these mutually beneficial rules permanently so that both regional and U.S. businesses can plan, invest, and trade with full certainty for years to come.”
The latest submission builds on the CPSO’s coordinated 2025 advocacy campaign, which was backed by the full Caricom Heads of Government, the Caricom Secretariat, the bloc’s ambassadorial cohort based in Washington D.C., regional shipping lines, port operators, tourism industry associations, and maritime sector stakeholders. The CPSO extended formal appreciation to USTR, the Section 301 interagency committee, and the broader Biden-Harris administration for opening the public comment window to center Caribbean trade perspectives in the rulemaking process. Full copies of the joint formal comment submission are available to interested parties upon request directly from the CPSO Secretariat.