By: Isuru Parakrama
April 10, Colombo (LNW): A segment aired by CNN has drawn attention to Sri Lanka’s unexpected inclusion in the list of nations affected by the United States’ latest tariff proposals, sparking questions about the rationale behind the Trump administration’s broader trade strategy.
The televised discussion featured anchor Erin Burnett and Brent Neiman, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, who both expressed doubts over the logic used to determine which countries would face the new levies.
Burnett questioned whether Sri Lanka truly warranted such measures, pointing out that the country’s trade with the US is relatively modest in scale and does not present a significant imbalance.
“Americans buy a lot of clothes from Sri Lanka, but Sri Lanka doesn’t buy many gas turbines from America. That’s not a trade imbalance that needs to be corrected,” she remarked, highlighting the lack of proportionality in the decision.
Professor Neiman reinforced this view, suggesting that the inclusion of smaller economies such as Sri Lanka, Jordan, and Zambia raised concerns about how the tariff calculations were made.
He described the strategy as evidence of a “mistaken philosophy,” questioning whether the formula behind these reciprocal tariffs genuinely reflects the realities of global trade dynamics.
The Trump administration’s tariff scheme—introduced as part of its ‘America First’ economic agenda—has already provoked significant market turbulence and widespread criticism from both allies and analysts.
The central argument for the policy has been the need to redress trade imbalances with countries that export significantly more to the United States than they import.
However, critics argue that the calculations behind these imbalances are simplistic and fail to take into account broader economic relationships, service trade, and investment flows.
Following mounting backlash from business leaders and international partners, the White House announced a 90-day delay in implementing most of the proposed tariffs, with the exception of China, which remains subject to the harshest rates.
The announcement has brought some temporary relief to global financial markets, which had suffered dramatic declines in the days leading up to the pause.
Nevertheless, the episode has reignited debates over the effectiveness and coherence of the current US trade posture. For smaller economies like Sri Lanka—whose export profile is largely composed of garments and tea, and which has limited leverage in bilateral trade disputes—the implications of such policies are significant.
Analysts warn that being swept into broader geopolitical and economic battles could risk destabilising fragile industries and complicate diplomatic ties with Washington.
With Sri Lanka continuing to navigate the economic and diplomatic fallout from its unexpected listing, questions remain over how the Trump administration intends to balance domestic political messaging with the complex realities of global trade relations.
