From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, trade with Trinket, as with the rest of the Nicobar Islands, was dominated by Indian, Arab, and European merchant fleets. Prior to the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the island's populace was dependent on the outside world for many goods, including foodstuffs. Until the 1950s they exported whole coconuts and other forest products, but after the 1950s local production shifted toward exports of processed coconut, in the form of
copra. Those products were traded for imports such as rice, sugar, and clothes, which were used to supplement the local subsistence economy based on hunting and gathering, fishing, pig and chicken rearing, and household gardens. == History ==