This is unfortunate – Mahama criticizes the U.S. decision to impose global tariffs

 

President John Dramani Mahama has described the U.S. decision to impose global tariffs as unfortunate.

He said U.S. president Donald Trump unilaterally ignoring the rule-based trading system to impose tariffs on other countries to serve their parochial interest will negatively affect the economy of the affected countries.

“But I just joined His Excellency that we all accepted the rule-based trading system and it has served the world well. It has helped significant growth of GDP across the world. It is unfortunate that without resorting to the rule-based trading system, one country decides to impose tariffs across the board on all countries. Ghana got slapped with 10% which is the tariff that was rolled out but the country like Lesotho got 46%, and one area that contributes to Lesotho’s economy is the export of the garment industry to the US.” Mr. Mahama said this during a meeting with Czech President Petr Pavel.

“And you can be sure that it is going to affect small countries like Lesotho, many of the countries that are set up there might look for areas where they can receive a cheaper tariff to be able to continue to export to the American market. So it has very severe implications for everybody and I believe that a multilateral world serves as better than a unilateral world where people take decisions based on only their country’s interest.” He added.

Mr. Mahama suggested that there should be a broader partnership and global interest than someone’s parochial interest.

“We must look at the broader global partnerships and the global interest rather than just our parochial national interest.” He stated.

Ghana’s president disclosed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa will soon release a statement on the implication of the tariff on Ghana’s economy.

“Our Minister of Foreign Affair and the Ministry of Trade held a meeting with the US Ambassador to clarify what the implications of the tariff are for Ghana particularly. I think in the next few days the Minister of Foreign Affairs will release a statement on what the implications of those tariffs are.” He disclosed.

Source: Elvisanokyenews.net