Browse Data and Analysis

The Caribbean Basin region continues to experience growth, driven primarily by the steady rise in tourism, which in turn impacts consumer demand.

The United States is a major trading partner with the Dominican Republic (DR). The DR is the largest economy in the Caribbean and the seventh-largest economy in Latin America. Since the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) went into effect for the DR in 2007, U.S. agricultural exports to the DR have increased from $1 billion in 2007 to $2 billion in 2024.

The Caribbean Basin region has a robust and competitive hotel/restaurant/institutional (HRI) sector. Tourism is a major economic driver, accounting for nearly 9 million visitors in 2023, almost 50 percent of which arrived from the United States...

As tourists flock back to the Caribbean in larger numbers and island economies regain their footing after being challenged by global inflation, competition, and other headwinds, opportunities for U.S. suppliers are slowly emerging. While hurdles remain present on the horizon, U.S. suppliers are finding resilient Caribbean buyers to be excellent partners on the road to commercial success.

Demand for U.S. consumer-oriented products in the Caribbean region reached $1.5 billion in 2022, a 26 percent gain compared to the previous year.

Sales in the Caribbean retail grocery sector decreased by 1.7 percent in 2022, primarily as the result of closing retail outlets in the French West Indies.

The Caribbean’s rebound from the economic downturn induced by the COVID-19 pandemic has been slow. Anxious for better times, the region is looking ahead at 2023 and hoping for improved tourist arrivals that will spark a return to more robust economic growth.

On September 29, 2022, Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health published updated precautionary requirements for some imported foodstuffs lifting a ban on U.S. poultry and poultry products from all U.S. states.

The resumption of travel amid a waning COVID-19 pandemic is breathing much-needed fresh air into the Caribbean Hotel Restaurant Institutional (HRI) food service sector. Yet in 2021 sector sales still fell short of pre-pandemic levels.

Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic (both in terms of public health and economic performance), the tourism-dependent Caribbean is anxiously awaiting a return to more normal times characterized by growing tourist arrivals, which in many ways are the economic lifeblood of the region.

Eager to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind it, the Caribbean is doing all it can to attract visitors and kick-start its tourism sector in 2021.

Overall U.S. agricultural and related product exports to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait (GCC-4) are higher by 3 percent from January to March 2021 compared to the same time last year.