Federal Small Business Administration officials met with Virgin Islanders in February, acknowledging shipping and receiving frustrations, promising diligence on new BVI charter boat fees, and, according to a statement from the agency released Monday, taking jabs at former President Joe Biden.
Matt Coleman, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Atlantic Region, visited businesses on all three islands, from the Little Olive Food Truck to the Port Hamilton oil refinery, which under federal rules qualifies as a small business, according to the statement.
One of those businesses was Gold Coast Yachts, boatbuilders on St. Croix since 1986. President and cofounder Richard Difede said he was impressed someone in Coleman’s position would pay attention to the Virgin Islands, but noted the visit came during a particularly cold winter on the mainland.
Difede, the SBA’s 2018 Virgin Islands Entrepreneur of the Year, had bolstered his business and employees during the COVID-19 pandemic by using Paycheck Protection Program loans, something Coleman knew all about as the public face of the program in the Atlantic Region for the first Trump administration.
Difede said he told Coleman about the problems caused by new Customs regulations — where tax is owed on almost everything shipped into the Virgin Islands — as well as the general state of uncertainty’s effect on his business.
With orders placed around two years before expected delivery, Gold Coast’s yacht building requires careful planning with buyers and suppliers, he said.
“The suppliers can’t give me a price anymore. I don’t have a clue,” Difede said. “The uncertainty right now is massive, and that’s not good for the economy or any sector within the economy. So, you know, the status quo can always be improved. Confusion is not the way to improve it.”
Coleman, a President Donald Trump appointee, assured Difede and others that the federal government was working “tirelessly” to resolve one of the biggest hits to the USVI economy in recent memory, the BVI’s fee hike on charter boats. The Trump administration had sent a formal diplomatic complaint to BVI officials about their 2025 Commercial Recreational Vessel Licensing Act, he said.
The charter vessel industry and related businesses employ approximately 25% of the USVI’s private employees, Coleman said. The SBA, the Departments of State, Commerce, and Homeland Security, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, as well as local maritime advocates, were all working to protect the territory’s vital charter boat industry, he said.
Congress has also been alerted to the “economic inequities caused to U.S. Virgin Islands small businesses by the BVI amendments,” Coleman said in a press release.
“The sharp rise in license fees to utilize these shared waters is not consistent with the historically collaborative and close relationship between the USVI and BVI,” he wrote.
Coleman’s visit to the territory came with trademark Donald Trump-style bombastic language and shots at his predecessor, Biden.
In 2023 and 2024, the SBA broke records for backing loans in the territory, benefiting 18 businesses in 2023 and 22 in 2024, ensuring $9.8 million in small business loans that year.
Coleman said that the number more than doubled in 2025, but did not provide details on how many businesses benefited.
“The almost 200% increase in SBA loans in the USVI compared to the last year of the Biden Administration — in 2024, the SBA approved just $9.8 million in the territory, but one year later, that number jumped to $20.6 million — is a record high,” Coleman wrote. “Lending gains continued even after the Trump SBA reduced its workforce by 43% earlier last year and implemented stricter underwriting standards in response to heightened $400 million in defaults and delinquencies from the Biden Administration due to their mismanagement and lax underwriting standards.”
Officials from the Virgin Islands Small Business Development Center, which promotes weekly events to aid small business owners, did not immediately reply to several requests for information.
Coleman also touted the Trump administration’s dramatic reversal of federal regulatory oversight. He met with Port Hamilton refinery officials, including Vice President and refinery manager Fermin Rodriguez, who helped lead the refinery’s response to EPA environmental remediation. An early version of the SBA’s press release on Coleman’s visit erroneously said the refinery had secured new federal contracts. It has not, officials said.
“Thanks to the Trump economic agenda – including tax cuts, deregulation, and fair trade – job creators are spring-loaded for another historic year in 2026,” he said. “After four tough years, 2025 marked Main Street’s comeback — from USVI to the mainland — because President Trump knows that small business is big business for America. It’s why the Trump SBA prioritized capital access, deregulation, and Made in the USA – and helped generate all-time records for small business formation, confidence, and capital delivery.”
Coleman singled out Mutiny Distiller’s use of breadfruit for their vodka making, reducing reliance on imported ingredients.
At Gold Coast Yachts, Difede took a more measured view of both the deregulation and the made-in-America push.
“Things were more stable under previous administrations but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were stable. There were certainly issues,” he said.
The idea that businesses will pass along savings to their customers in the form of lower prices is a fantasy, he said. Regulations can be cumbersome and sometimes hold a business back but are also necessary for the health of the community.
“Ultimately, my business is secondary to the health of the people of the territory and the environment of the people in the territory,” he said. “Trump’s wiping out all these regulatory things for air and water and my food. I hate that.”
Upcoming Virgin Islands Small Business Development Center events include tips on securing an SBA loan, a primer on USVI economics and cash flow, a deep dive on the territory’s Economic Development Bank and State Small Business Credit Initiative, a talk on disaster preparedness and business resiliency, a guide to writing a successful business plan, and more.
