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Half the year is basically gone and we can’t believe it. Pretty sure say that every year, but here we are again.

Let's get into it.

The Bahamas has been caught in a Washington trade dispute that has nothing to do with our fishermen and everything to do with how the Trump administration is trying to reshape global supply chains.

Here's the background you need. In June, the US Trade Representative's Office named The Bahamas among 54 countries it says have failed to ban imports of goods made with forced labour. That designation triggered a threatened 12.5% tariff on Bahamian exports to the US. The headline number is stark: up to $70m worth of spiny lobster and stone crab shipments annually, from an industry that employs fewer than 10,000 Bahamians and generates around $120m a year in foreign currency.

Why now?

The clock is ticking. Written submissions to the USTR close on July 6. Public hearings begin July 7. Whatever happens next happens fast.

This week, a Florida seafood importer named Joshua Johnson went to bat for The Bahamas. His company sources 180,000 pounds of Bahamian seafood per season and he wrote directly to the USTR arguing that applying forced labour tariffs to Bahamian crawfish makes no sense. Bahamian fishermen are independent operators or co-op members, he said, not a captive labour force. The Bahamas runs a small-scale, regulated fishery governed by international sustainability standards. There is no forced labour here.

His most pointed argument was also his most practical: if you make Bahamian lobster more expensive, American buyers don't stop buying lobster. They just buy it from countries with worse labour records. The tariff achieves the exact opposite of what it intends.

Here’s the thing…The USTR's complaint isn't that The Bahamas uses forced labour. It's that we don't have a law banning the import of goods made with forced labour elsewhere. That's a very different thing. The Davis administration quietly slipped a fix into the 2026-2027 Budget: new legislation that would give Customs the power to block forced-labour goods at the border.

The problem is that passing the law may not be enough. The USTR has signalled it wants to see enforcement, not just legislation. A clause in a budget bill, passed days before the deadline, may not move Washington.

Countries that have enacted such bans, or committed to doing so, face a lower 10% tariff rate. Countries that have neither laws nor enforcement, like The Bahamas currently sits, face 12.5%. The July 1 passage of the Customs amendment could theoretically drop us into the lower bracket. Whether the USTR agrees is another matter entirely.

The bottom line: Our fishermen didn't do anything wrong. Our lobster is clean, sustainable, and ethically sourced. But we're caught between a US administration swinging a broad policy hammer and a deadline that arrived faster than our government's response did. The next two weeks will determine whether a law passed at the last minute is enough to protect a $70m industry.

I must admit you all are doing much better than I expected with these quizzes.

The team and I are brainstorming ways to reward those of you who take the time to solve these, and maybe make it more interesting for those who don’t. Feel free to shoot over your ideas!

Let’s try something different this week:

What has keys but can't open locks, has space but no room, and you can enter but can't go inside?

Check the bottom of the newsletter for the answer.

NHI just sent a memo to every doctor, lab, and medical provider on the scheme. The message, translated from corporate foolishness into English: payments will stay late, manage your finances accordingly, and please understand these are simply "realities" to be managed.

The memo arrived the same week the government was touting a nearly 50% budget increase for NHI, from $48.2m to $72.7m.

Of the $24.5m increase, $18m goes directly to the National Prescription Drug Plan, which was just moved from NIB into NHI's budget. It was already being spent. It was just being counted somewhere else. The actual new money for NHI's existing operations and clearing its backlog of unpaid bills to doctors? $6.5m.

Dr Denotrah Archer-Cartwright, one of the more vocal NHI providers, put it plainly: "It's not a budget increase. It's a reallocation of funds."

Here's the part that should concern the 161,000 Bahamians on NHI. Doctors on the scheme are still being paid the same $12.50 per patient, per month capitation rate they received when NHI launched in 2016. Ten years ago. Meanwhile, the cost of running a medical practice has risen substantially, the scheme has added more providers and more patients without adding proportionate funding, and NHI is now charging doctors fees to register, use their own facilities, and access the scheme's electronic records system.

The Authority calls this "fiscal discipline." Doctors call it being taxed to participate in a programme that already underpays them.

When doctors are paid late and paid too little, practices become unsustainable. Providers leave the scheme. The patients who depend on NHI for affordable care are left with fewer options.

✈️ Bahamasair has resumed scheduled service to Cat Island for the first time in over two decades, flying Nassau to Cat Island twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays. The Arthur's Town Airport in north Cat Island was also officially reopened as part of the government's 19-airport renaissance project.

🌊 The government has launched its first national assessment of all 70 marine protected areas, part of a 15-year, $124m debt conversion project running through 2039. The Bahamas restructured $300m in external bonds, with the savings being reinvested into marine conservation. Twenty-six areas have already been scored in the first week.

🥚 No tariffs on eggs, says government. Senate budget debate raised whether the Golden Yolk programme needed tariff protection from cheaper imports. Minister Fitzgerald said no since Bahamian eggs are already cheaper to produce than what we import, so there's nothing to protect against. The Bahamas currently imports 52 million eggs a year. The Golden Yolk programme is targeting 27 million produced locally.

🏛️ Rick Fox came out swinging in his maiden Senate speech. The former NBA champion pushed back on critics who mocked his appointment, argued that shaming first-time voters is how democracies shrink, and took a subtle shot at Sebas Bastian's cabinet appointment. He also called for a dedicated ministry to tackle national debt. Not bad for a debut.

🎙️ Two more new PLP senators made their debuts this week. Clint Watson announced plans for a coordinated national drug strategy, including a drug observatory and early warning system to detect dangerous substances. Latrae Rahming kept it broader, backing the Davis administration's record and expressing confidence in its direction.

🏨 Royal Caribbean closed its $30m purchase of Freeport's long-closed Xanadu Beach Hotel. The cruise giant now owns the property and 18 acres, with a $348m development planned across a 28-acre site. With Carnival's Celebration Key and MSC's Billy Cay project also underway, Freeport is shaping up to host three separate private cruise destinations.

🌡️ Europe is cooking, and people are dying. The WHO says more than 1,300 excess deaths have been recorded across the continent since June 21, linked to an unprecedented early summer heatwave. Germany hit 107°F for the third straight day on Sunday, with Poland and Czech Republic also breaking all-time records. The WHO chief's warning was blunt: Europe is heating at twice the global average.

📱 Apple just made your next laptop significantly more expensive. The company raised prices on MacBooks and iPads this week, blaming a historic spike in memory and storage chip costs driven by AI data centre demand. A MacBook Air now starts at $1,299, up from $1,099. iPhones are safe for now, but analysts expect the iPhone 18 to cost up to $200 more this fall.

🌍 Twin earthquakes struck Venezuela this week, killing at least 164 people and injuring 971. The first measured 7.2, followed less than a minute later by a 7.5 — the country's largest since 1900. La Guaira was declared a disaster zone, with Caracas also significantly impacted. Those figures are expected to rise.

🎮 GTA VI preorders are live, but Rockstar has some nerve. The most anticipated game in years is available to preorder at $79.99 ahead of a November release, but the "physical" copy comes with no disc, just a download code in a box. First time in franchise history. You're paying for cardboard and a receipt.

🕊️ Alan Greenspan, who chaired the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, died at 100 years old. He steered the economy through multiple crises under four presidents and is credited with one of the longest booms in American history. Critics, however, blame his push for financial deregulation for helping plant the seeds of the 2008 financial crisis.

In their final days, Spirit Airlines explored every option to keep the planes flying. Acquisitions. Mergers. Even a deal with the White House.

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