Anticipation without preparation

Apr 07, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News- The Vice President of Guyana, ever the sagacious observer of the inevitable, has reassured the nation that the tariff hike imposed by the United States was no surprise. No, the government saw it coming. They anticipated it. They expected it.

Obviously, he could not have predicted the specific tax that was to be imposed. But the government foresaw the use of tariffs as a weapon to rebalance trade deficits since this was part of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. It is a remarkable admission, really, to have seen the storm but to have done nothing about it. One imagines the administration as a homeowner who watches dark clouds roll in, hears the wind howling, the lightning flashing, nods knowingly at the approaching tempest—and then leaves the windows wide open.

Now the rain has drenched the floors, the furniture is ruined. And the man of the house, shivering in his soaked clothes, turns to his bewildered family and says, “Yes, yes, we expected this.” To expect disaster and still be unprepared for it is a particular kind of folly, one that requires a certain degree of detachment from reality. That the government of Guyana had the foresight to anticipate the tariff but not the inclination to take preventive or pre-emptive steps suggests a leadership that is befuddling.

The Vice President, with his usual air of practised nonchalance, speaks as if an entire country should take comfort in his assurances. His words, delivered with the gravitas of a seasoned oracle, are meant to convey wisdom, but instead reveal a peculiar helplessness. It is the kind of assurance one gives after the fact, when the damage is done, when the ship has already sunk, when the milk is irreversibly spilt.

The question, of course, is what precisely the government did with its knowledge of the impending tariffs. Surely, a nation so blessed with foresight would have engaged in diplomatic manoeuvring, trade diversification, strategic alliances—some effort to mitigate the coming impact. But no such measures were apparent. Instead, the government remained in a state of passive observation, as if watching a slow-moving mudslide from a safe distance, only to suddenly realise, too late, that the house is in its path.

It is a most curious thing, this brand of leadership. Imagine a captain who sees a sunken wreck, but rather than steering away, decides to continue full steam ahead, all the while assuring the passengers that he had long predicted this particular collision. When the ship starts taking on water, he declares with confidence, “This was entirely expected.”

And yet, despite this grand expectation, the Vice President and his colleagues are now scrambling for clarification. Clarification, presumably, on why the obvious has occurred? Or why this specific tariff? Any tariff, high or low, was bound to hurt. So where were the consultations and the preparations?

The Trump administration, as the Vice President so astutely observes, has always spoken of trade imbalances and of rectifying them with tariffs. That much was known. To say what is now needed is clarification on how exactly this applies to Guyana— is like asking why, in effect, the wind is wet and the sun is hot.

One imagines the hurried calls to Washington, the diplomatic notes written in the rushed and desperate tones of a government caught unprepared. “We anticipated this,” they say, “but we need further details.” It is the equivalent of a student confidently predicting an exam, only to plead for an extension when the test paper is placed before him.

Meanwhile, the private sector, the exporters, the farmers, the traders—those who must actually deal with the consequences of these tariffs—are left to wonder what exactly their government was doing with all this grand foresight. A warning without action is no warning at all; it is merely a statement of the obvious, a nod to inevitability, a resignation to fate.

The Vice President’s remarks, then, are not so much an admission of preparedness as they are an unwitting confession of something else. It is one thing to be caught off guard; it is quite another to see the blow coming and simply stand there, waiting to be hit. The government has, with remarkable efficiency, managed to accomplish both.

In this spectacle of anticipation without preparation, Guyana’s leadership has demonstrated the unique ability to foresee catastrophe and yet remain entirely unready for it. It is a skill that is rare, if not entirely useless.

Now, with the tariffs in place, the government scrambles. There will be meetings and discussions. There will be postures of concern and declarations of effort. Officials will speak in carefully measured tones about “engaging with stakeholders” and “seeking clarity.” But the reality remains: the storm has arrived, the windows were left open, and the house is now flooded. And so, the country watches as its leaders, drenched and shivering, insist with great confidence, “Yes, we expected this.”

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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