As many Bahamians have elections on their minds, and since the
economy matters and figures highly in the decisions of voters, it is
very important that Media educate the population on how and why
the cost of living is what it is. Afterall, an educated voter is in the
national interest and democracy.

There are some people who believe that everything rises or falls on
the government. While there are certain policies that the State can
put in place to ease the pain and suffering of the citizenry, politicians
must be forthright and honest in fiscal matters. More importantly,
the electorate must be cognizant of the local and international
economic geography in order to make intelligent decisions.

In every constituency in The Bahamas, the cry is the same as it is in
Florida, Georgia, New York or Washington. The average person
believes that the cost of food is far too high. More must be done to
reduce costs. However, the discerning voter knows that there are
certain issues which cannot be resolved quickly.

In a recent article the Economist Adam S. Posen said: “U.S.
President Donald Trump’s radical shift in economic approach has
already begun to change norms, behaviours, and institutions
globally. Like a major earthquake, it has given rise to new features in
the landscape and rendered many existing economic structures
unusable. This event was a political choice, not an inevitable natural
disaster.

“To understand these changes, many analysts and politicians focus
on the degree to which supply chains and trade in manufactured
goods are shifting between the United States and China.”

The cold hard facts are that we in The Bahamas import inflation.
There are many aspects of the economy that are simply outside the
control of the government.

The Trump administration’s policies constitute a clear turning point.
The president’s supporters sometimes portray these as a mere
repricing risk: the free world’s insurer is adjusting its fees and
services to fit new realities and correct a previous tendency to
underprice its offerings. This depiction is mistaken. The Trump
administration has made it clear that it wants the United States to
operate a completely different kind of scheme, in which it
weaponizes and maintains uncertainty in order to extract as much as
it can for as little as possible in return.

Trump and his advisers would argue that this is simple reciprocity or
fair treatment for countries that, in their view, exploited the United
States for decades. Yet those countries never extracted anything
that remotely matched what the United States received.

The cost of living increases for Bahamians because we import more
than 90 percent of what we consume from goods which come from
or through the United States. The increased tariffs imposed on
countries like China, Japan and Canada, as well as the cost of
transportation are passed on to the consumer.

Trump has now subjected these countries to to massive tariffs and
tariff threats as well as bilateral requests for specific

accommodations and side payments, such as demands that they
purchase more U.S. natural gas or transfer industrial production to
the United States States.

It is believed that the U.S. supply chains that the Trump
administration claims to want to secure will become less reliable,
inherently costlier, less diversified in their sourcing, and subject to
more risk from U.S. specific shocks.

Leaving behind much of the developing world will not only increase
migrant flows and trigger public health crises; it will prevent the
United States from tapping potential market opportunities. The
Trump administration’s moves to drive away foreign investment will
erode U.S. living standards and those of countries like The Bahamas
as well.