✍️ Editorial

By: Omar Silva

National Perspective Bz -Digital 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Sunday 6th April 2025

Let us speak plainly: Belize is on the verge of economic disaster, and our leaders are politely mumbling through diplomatic briefings while the walls shake around us.

Trump’s tariffs may be aimed at China, but the tremors are slamming into our fragile shores. Belize, a nation with no serious export strategy, no industrial backbone, and importing everything from toothpaste to tractors, now faces inflation, job losses, and currency risk. And what do we get in response? "We are gathering data."

How is it that a country that imports 90% of its goods, including critical food supplies and construction materials, has no war room, no contingency plan, and no bold strategy ready for implementation?

Let us be clear: the 10% tariff on Belizean exports to the U.S. is only the beginning. A 54% effective tariff on Chinese goods, coupled with shipping costs about to double due to a $1.5 million U.S. port levy on Chinese vessels, will crush the supply lines of small importers and ripple through every corner store, school lunch plate, and construction site in this country.

Meanwhile, exporters like Marie Sharp’s are left negotiating with surprised U.S. distributors, deciding whether to eat the losses or cut production. What happens when Marie Sharp stops buying as many carrots from Belizean farmers? Or when her Walmart contracts go on hold?

Let us not delude ourselves with political spin or economic fairy tales. Belize is not resilient. It is unprepared. And this crisis is peeling the cover off a reality we’ve ignored for decades.

CARICOM Chair Mia Mottley is right. We should have anticipated this. The region should have been building local production networks, alternate shipping routes, and direct trade ties with Africa, Latin America, and Asia. But we sat, hand outstretched, waiting on the U.S. to be kind.

Now, we are collateral damage in an economic war that has nothing to do with us.

Belize must immediately:

Cut wasteful import luxuries and subsidize essential food production.

Bypass U.S. ports and strengthen ties with Mexico and Panama for direct shipping.

Use the crisis to launch a bold national production plan—supporting farmers, builders, manufacturers, ad innovators with financing, tax breaks, and guaranteed markets.

Treat the 2:1 peg like a sacred altar—because if we lose that, we lose everything.

This is not time for another “technical discussion” or another “foreign affairs consultation.” This is a time for action. And if our current political class refuses to act, the people must rise to demand better.

Because when the prices explode, when jobs are cut, and when the sugar stops shipping—there will be no one else to blame.

Belize, wake up. The world just changed—and it did not wait for us.