{"id":150742,"date":"2025-07-17T23:42:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=150742"},"modified":"2025-07-17T16:04:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:04:39","slug":"the-failure-of-the-sri-lankan-delegation-in-u-s-trade-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/07\/17\/the-failure-of-the-sri-lankan-delegation-in-u-s-trade-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Failure of the Sri Lankan Delegation in U.S. Trade Negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Newspaper Version (Op-Ed Articel)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Just days ago, we were told that trade discussions with the United States were progressing well\u201d and all under control.\u201d Now, we face the reality: <strong>a 30% U.S. tariff on&nbsp;Sri Lankan goods<\/strong>, effective August 1st.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to foreign media, Sri Lanka has been grouped with Algeria, Iraq, and Libya \u2014 all facing the same punitive 30% tariff under the revised U.S. trade policy. Brunei and Moldova face 25%, and the Philippines 20%, while Malaysia has a much lower tariff with a win-win situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This outcome reflects a <strong>complete failure of negotiation<\/strong>&nbsp;by the Sri Lankan team and its advisors with inflated self-worth. Whether due to lack of experience, poor preparation, overestimation of their position, lack of strategy and attention to detail, poor understanding of what the USA is expecting, or sheer arrogance, the result is both disappointing and unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. team, by all accounts, acted reasonably. The failure lies squarely on our side. A competent, strategic team would have aimed to negotiate the tariff down to <strong>15% or lower<\/strong>. That did not happen. Instead, we sent a bloated team abroad, at public expense, and got no meaningful result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Frankly, <strong>even without sending a delegation, Sri Lanka might have received the same tariff rate<\/strong>. This calls into question the very purpose of the trip and the advisors involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why wasn\u2019t this negotiated down to 10\u201315%?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who is accountable for this debacle? This must be investigated \u2014 we cannot afford such incompetence. Shouldn&#8217;t more competent people with a better understanding of the needs, fundamental facts, and experience in high-end trade negotiations be sent to the USA?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There must be <strong>accountability and transparency<\/strong>. We cannot afford to repeat such costly blunders on the global stage. The country deserves better. As usual, we would not hold our breath to see anyone held accountable for these ongoing failures. #SriLanka #TradeFailure #Tariffs #Accountability #USTrade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newspaper Version (Op-Ed Articel) Just days ago, we were told that trade discussions with the United States were progressing well\u201d and all under control.\u201d Now, we face the reality: a 30% U.S. tariff on&nbsp;Sri Lankan goods, effective August 1st. According to foreign media, Sri Lanka has been grouped with Algeria, Iraq, and Libya \u2014 all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}