diff --git a/tfexec/errors.go b/tfexec/errors.go
index 26e38ed0..010b3887 100644
--- a/tfexec/errors.go
+++ b/tfexec/errors.go
@@ -29,9 +29,8 @@ var (
 )
 
 func (tf *Terraform) parseError(err error, stderr string) error {
-	// if not an ExitError, just return it, do not try to parse
-	var ee *exec.ExitError
-	if !errors.As(err, &ee) {
+	ee, ok := err.(*exec.ExitError)
+	if !ok {
 		return err
 	}