n the eve of the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, the ma­jor threats fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go can be broad­ly dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed in­to threats which are in­ter­nal and those which are ex­ter­nal.

The in­ter­nal threats should be the eas­i­est to ad­dress, as de­ci­sion-mak­ers and cit­i­zens have all the re­sources nec­es­sary to over­come these chal­lenges. They are crime, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, food se­cu­ri­ty and the abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate enough for­eign ex­change to buy the things we need but do not pro­duce.

Ex­ter­nal threats are more com­pli­cat­ed and there­fore dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate, as small coun­tries have lim­it­ed in­flu­ence on world events and trends.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, a coun­try’s on­ly re­al re­source is the strength and re­silience of its cit­i­zens, not its min­er­al re­sources, and their will­ing­ness to or­gan­ise and co­a­lesce here around the ba­sic guid­ing prin­ci­ples of a de­cent so­ci­ety. That re­quires a will­ing­ness to bal­ance self-in­ter­est with na­tion­al in­ter­est to cre­ate a more equal so­ci­ety.

Every coun­try must ad­dress these is­sues and de­vel­op mech­a­nisms to en­sure that all cit­i­zens have equal op­por­tu­ni­ty and that the State’s re­sources are used in a bal­anced and eq­ui­table man­ner for the suc­cess of the cur­rent and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

There are al­ways com­pet­ing in­ter­ests. This is the lead­er­ship task: to ar­tic­u­late, per­suade, and com­mu­ni­cate a vi­sion and the need for a com­mon rule book to en­sure in­ter­nal peace and the po­lit­i­cal will to pri­ori­tise the de­vel­op­ment agen­da whilst fac­ing a chang­ing world or­der that is in­creas­ing­ly er­rat­ic and com­pli­cat­ed. Lead­ers in­flu­ence and are re­spon­si­ble for pri­ori­tis­ing the agen­da and the pace of achieve­ment.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, in the cur­rent elec­tion cli­mate, no po­lit­i­cal par­ty has ably com­mu­ni­cat­ed an agen­da which ad­dress­es the ex­ter­nal threats that will di­rect­ly im­pact the suc­cess of any do­mes­tic agen­da. In­stead, the main po­lit­i­cal par­ties in­dulged in a bid­ding war of promis­es, promis­es which are be­yond the coun­try’s cur­rent ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er in a five-year term.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, last week, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund Spring Meet­ing ad­dressed the chal­lenges caused by the chang­ing world or­der over the next two years. The rapid growth of in­ter­na­tion­al trade al­lowed de­vel­op­ing coun­tries to grow their economies and lift their coun­tries out of pover­ty. The US pol­i­cy shift to pro­tec­tion­ism and its up­end­ing of the in­ter­na­tion­al trade sys­tem have cre­at­ed glob­al un­cer­tain­ty, fi­nan­cial mar­ket volatil­i­ty, weak­ened growth prospects and in­creased risks.

The IMF char­ac­terised Don­ald Trump’s tar­iffs as a “ma­jor neg­a­tive shock” to world growth. Its World Eco­nom­ic Out­look pub­li­ca­tion not­ed that the sharp in­crease in trade tar­iffs will slow glob­al growth sig­nif­i­cant­ly this year and the next, but the world econ­o­my will avoid re­ces­sion. It re­duced the fore­cast for world eco­nom­ic growth by .5 per cent to 2.8 per cent. It slashed the US growth fore­cast for 2025 from 2.7 per cent to 1.8 per cent and down­grad­ed pro­jec­tions for Chi­na, In­dia, and the G7 group of rich coun­tries. Amer­i­ca’s era as the cham­pi­on of free trade died with the elec­tion of Don­ald Trump.

It not­ed that gov­ern­ment bud­gets in al­most every coun­try are chal­lenged and had not ful­ly re­cov­ered from the fis­cal im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. It is pro­ject­ed that glob­al pub­lic debt will in­crease and ac­cel­er­ate faster in 2025 than in 2024. It not­ed that its pro­jec­tions could be worse be­cause of the glob­al pol­i­cy un­cer­tain­ty and “the shift­ing eco­nom­ic land­scape”.

This un­cer­tain­ty will af­fect any plan de­vised by the par­ty tak­ing of­fice on April 29. How­ev­er, nei­ther the PNM’s nor the UNC’s man­i­festos and cam­paign promis­es have fac­tored in the dif­fi­cul­ties they will face if ei­ther par­ty is elect­ed.

In­deed, both par­ties have at­tempt­ed to buy sup­port from the elec­torate by mak­ing or sug­gest­ing im­proved wage set­tle­ments and oth­er good­ies that must be paid from a de­plet­ed pub­lic purse. In mit­i­ga­tion, politi­cians ar­gue that promis­ing aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures will not get them elect­ed.

How­ev­er, who­ev­er wins will have dif­fi­cul­ty in the post-elec­tion pe­ri­od when con­front­ed with the re­al­i­ties of of­fice. There is no mag­ic wand to change the fact that rev­enues are lim­it­ed, and ex­pand­ing ex­pen­di­ture in one area will mean cut­backs else­where. What pro­grammes will be sac­ri­ficed? One needs on­ly to look at the chaos gen­er­at­ed by Elon Musk and the ef­fects of the De­part­ment of Gov­ern­ment Ef­fi­cien­cy in the US. The fi­nan­cial in­sta­bil­i­ty caused by Trump’s tar­iffs has af­fect­ed the bond mar­kets.

“Ris­ing yields” means that it is more ex­pen­sive to bor­row. There­fore, fi­nanc­ing cam­paign promis­es means high­er debt ser­vice costs and less mon­ey for oth­er things. It al­so means that the val­ue of the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund and NIB’s US hold­ings will de­cline. How long this will last de­pends on how fi­nan­cial mar­kets re­act to the reim­po­si­tion of tar­iffs when the cur­rent pause ends.

The ex­emp­tions giv­en to elec­tron­ic prod­ucts give some en­cour­age­ment. Bor­row­ing is not a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion, and bor­row­ing to fi­nance re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture is worse. That is the re­cent les­son of Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica’s IMF pro­grammes.

Lead­ers lie and mis­lead the elec­torate on the plat­form in their haste to se­cure of­fice and then blame the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment for their cur­rent pol­i­cy fail­ures. The road ahead is chal­leng­ing for any par­ty form­ing the next gov­ern­ment. Which leader and which team are best ca­pa­ble of ad­dress­ing these chal­lenges?

Mar­i­ano Browne is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of The UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness.