Is Tethering The New Caribbean Guilder To An Unstable American Dollar And More Unstable American Government A Good Idea?
Caribbean Guilder Debuts with a Dollar Twist
By Someone Wondering About Our Financial Life Choices
Tethering The New Caribbean Guilder
Seeing how former U.S. President Donald Trump managed to destabilize the American dollar through erratic policy shifts, trade wars, and fiscal chaos, one has to ask:
is pegging our brand-new Caribbean guilder to that same dollar a sound strategy—or a silent gamble?
Curaçao and Sint Maarten have launched the Caribbean guilder, replacing the aging Netherlands Antillean guilder.
Tethering The New Caribbean Guilder
Yet rather than seize the opportunity to anchor their economies to something more stable—
like the euro—they’ve opted to maintain the dollar link at a fixed rate of 1 USD = 1.79 XCG.
The rationale is familiar. The islands rely heavily on U.S. tourism, trade, and remittances.
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Dollars already circulate widely, and the economy leans more toward Miami than Maastricht.
Maintaining the peg avoids the immediate disruptions that a switch would bring. Smooth, predictable, and practical.
But practical for whom?
The U.S. dollar, once the undisputed global benchmark, now behaves more like a geopolitical weather vane.
One administration’s whims can rattle entire regions.
https://stmaartennews.ai/full-road-closure-asphalt/
With Trump’s return to prominence in American politics—
marked by legal turmoil and populist economic rhetoric—the dollar’s future stability is far from guaranteed.
Still, the islands remain outside the European Union, meaning access to the euro comes with political hurdles.
Tethering The New Caribbean Guilder
Joining it would mean surrendering monetary control to European Central Bank policy,
which may not favor the needs of small Caribbean economies.
So here we are. A new currency, a fresh design, and the same dependency.
The Caribbean guilder may reflect local pride, but its fate is still chained to Washington’s decisions.
https://stmaartennews.ai/st-maarten-new-years-address-2025-prime-minister-dr-luc-mercelina/
In the end, the islands traded old notes for new ones, while tying their future to a currency currently navigating a storm of its own making.