By
Bloomberg
Published
April 7, 2025
Bangladesh is looking to keep Trump administration in an attempt to reduce the blow of a decision of the United States to impose 37% of tariffs on goods that could devastate the export industry of garments of garments of $ 40 billion in the country.
Bangladesh is looking for ways to reduce its commercial surplus with the US. To help reduce the duty that the nation will have to pay for its exports to the United States, authorities said. The Bangladesh rate is among the Trump higher taxes to any country, and could cause a shock to one of the poorest nations in the world, which depends largely on textile exports to support its economy.
“We are actively exploring opportunities to reduce the gaps,” SK. Bashir Uddin, Bangladesh's de facto trade minister, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
With garments that represent almost 90% of Bangladesh's total exports to the United States, their largest clothing buyer, bets are high for the economy. The country is still recovering from a political crisis last year after the expulsion of former leader Sheikh Hasina and depends on foreign aid, including the International Monetary Fund.
The new tariffs are based on bilateral commercial deficits in the USA. Instead of specific product criteria, a formula that some analysts said it was unfair to many small economies with important commercial surpluses such as Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh government had conversations with key stakeholders, including the Export Promotion Office, to evaluate rates. Among the options to reduce commercial imbalance with the United States is to increase imports from US goods such as raw cotton, authorities said.
“We can increase our cotton imports from the US market, but we need to establish a reliable supply chain for American cotton,” said Anwar Hossain, administrator of the Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Bangladesh Gares.
The main American retailers, such as Walmart Inc. and GAP Inc., get billions of dollars of Bangladesh clothing annually. A tariff walk could incite them to reassess the supply strategies, according to Hossain.
Bangladesh exports to the United States increased 1.1% to $ 8.4 billion in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the Office of the United States Commercial Representative. American exports to Bangladesh decreased 1.5% to $ 2.2 billion, he said.
The tariffs will make it more difficult for nations such as Bangladesh to reach their respective objectives of the rescue program established by the IMF, according to Ankur Shukla, an economist from Asia in the south of Bloomberg Economics in Mumbai.
“This could put these countries at risk at risk, which aggravates the downward risk for growth,” he wrote. There is some rise for Bangladesh because their tariffs were established at lower rates than competitors in the clothing sector, such as Sri Lanka, with 44% and 46% Vietnam, which “could provide a comparative advantage for Bangladesh and help you obtain some market participation.”
Authorities say there may be scope to adjust tariffs as part of reciprocal commercial conversations. Even so, there are “clouds that surround the decision of the United States,” according to Bashir Uddin, who has a ministerial range in the interim cabinet led by the Nobel Prize the Muhammad Yunus Prize.
“This is no longer a bilateral problem: it has become a global economic tsunami,” Uddin said.
