Pacific's hardest hit country by President Donald Trump’s sweeping worldwide tariffs announcement, Fiji, has said it has nothing to fight back with.
Fiji is the hardest hit in the Pacific, levied with a 32% tariff, while Vanuatu got 22% and Nauru at 30%.
Fiji prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka told reporters that Trump’s move was akin to a “trade blockade”; that his country could not win.
“We cannot fight a war, a trade war particularly.
“We don’t have anything to counter with. So we will have to weather the storm and roll [with] the punches,”; he said, as reported by FBC.
According to APP, the US is Fiji’s biggest goods export market, dominated by the country’s eponymous branded water.
Roughly $253m worth of the bottled spring water headed across the Pacific in 2023.
Westpac analyst, Justin Smirk told APP that he strongly believes that the tariff by the US won't hamper Fiji's water export business.
According to him, the Pacific nation has built a market and a brand that’s more resilient than that.
Trump administration handed a 10% tariff to other Pacific nations, such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.
