Saint Kitts and Nevis: Trade Partnerships

Saint Kitts and Nevis maintains a narrow but telling trade profile for a twin-island economy with a limited manufacturing base. As of 2017, the most recent year for which detailed partner-level data is available, the country's principal export markets included the United States, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda, with total merchandise exports of about 33 million dollars. Imports, led by the United States and followed by Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Japan, and China, reached nearly 309 million dollars in the same year, producing a trade deficit of more than 275 million dollars.

This imbalance is typical of small Eastern Caribbean states, which import most manufactured goods, fuel, and food while exporting a narrow range of products and services. Saint Kitts and Nevis offsets its merchandise trade gap mainly through tourism revenue, remittances from citizens abroad, and financial and other services rather than through goods exports. The closure of the national sugar industry in 2005 further narrowed the country's agricultural export base and reinforced this pattern of import dependence.

Membership in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) shapes much of Saint Kitts and Nevis's trade policy, easing the movement of goods among member states and linking its exports to the regional Caribbean market. As with its neighbors, the country's economic fortunes remain closely tied to tourism performance and to the policies of its largest trading partner, the United States.