Trinidad and Tobago’s Forex Crisis Has a Solution — A USD Currency Swap 🇹🇹

Описание: Trinidad and Tobago faces a foreign exchange challenge that now threatens growth, confidence, and long term economic stability. But this moment calls for strategy, not austerity. The solution is disciplined liquidity tied directly to exports, investment, and foreign exchange earnings.
Over the past decade, foreign exchange reserves have declined from more than eleven point five billion US dollars to approximately four point six billion by mid twenty twenty five, a decline of about fifty eight percent. That now represents roughly five months of import cover. FX rationing has constrained exporters, manufacturers, tourism operators, small and medium sized enterprises and service providers, not because of excess consumption, but because export earnings are delayed , lack of diversification and productive capacity is underutilized. This is not insolvency. It is a timing and liquidity challenge.
A sovereign US dollar currency swap offers a practical and proven solution. A currency swap is a temporary exchange of currencies between central banks, backed by formal agreements, fixed tenure, and full repayment. It provides immediate US dollar liquidity without selling reserves, without devaluation, and without IMF austerity. The United States has used this mechanism successfully with Argentina, South Korea, Brazil, and other economies to stabilize markets and protect productive sectors.
For Trinidad and Tobago, the proposal is a one point five to two billion US dollar swap at a fixed exchange rate of six dollars eighty Trinidad and Tobago dollars, structured over forty eight to sixty months. The swap would be executed between the US Treasury, with Federal Reserve support, and the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. Policy oversight would rest with the Ministers of Finance, the Minister of Trade and Industry, and the Central Bank Governor. Deployment would be tightly controlled and executed primarily through EXIM Bank Trinidad and Tobago, alongside regulated development and private banks.
Every US dollar would be ring fenced. No consumer imports. No recurrent government spending. No speculative activity. Liquidity flows only to foreign exchange earning sectors. These include energy services, downstream petrochemicals, export manufacturing, agro processing, ICT and digital services, professional and business services, logistics, tourism, and marine industries. Each dollar deployed must generate more foreign exchange than it consumes.
Real estate plays a critical role when designed correctly. Export oriented real estate attracts offshore capital through foreign buyer developments, long stay residency, medical and retirement living, and marina anchored communities. These projects generate FX through property sales, construction services, ongoing spending, and long term residency inflows. This is not speculative housing. It is real estate as an export engine.
Tobago is central to this strategy. Located south of the main Atlantic hurricane belt, with modern but underutilized infrastructure, Tobago can become a net foreign exchange generator. Tourism, long term residency, marine services, yachting, and bunkering can generate hundreds of millions of US dollars annually when properly executed, stabilizing the wider economy.
The swap also supports future facing export sectors. Agri technology and food processing. IT and digital services. Biotechnology and life sciences. Business process outsourcing and international financial services. These sectors earn foreign exchange with relatively low import intensity and align with the country’s long term diversification goals.
This strategy supports the national infrastructure and diversification agenda through growth, not austerity. It is not borrowing to consume. It is borrowing time to earn. With disciplined governance and export focus, a US dollar currency swap can stabilize today’s FX pressures while building the foreign exchange capacity of tomorrow. The assets exist. The opportunity exists. The moment to act is now.