In an executive order on Thursday, Trump slapped new tariff rates ranging from 10% to 41% on dozens of countries as he seeks to reshape global trade on more favourable terms for the US.<\/p>\n
The order said the higher import duty rates would take effect in seven days.<\/p>\n
SA has tried for months to negotiate a deal with Washington and offered to buy US liquefied natural gas and invest $3.3 billion in US industries in exchange for lower tariffs.<\/p>\n
But the effort was unsuccessful, even after Pretoria made a last-minute attempt to improve its offer.<\/p>\n
SA’s Trade Minister Parks Tau said the higher tariff was a threat to the country’s export capacity, particularly in key sectors such as automotive, agro-processing, steel, and chemicals.<\/p>\n
“We are working with urgency and resolve to implement real, practical interventions that defend jobs and position SA\u00a0competitively in a shifting global landscape,” Tau said in a statement late on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The US is SA’s second-largest bilateral trading partner after China. SA’s top exports to the US include cars, iron and steel products, and citrus fruits.<\/p>\n
The tariff hike underscores how SA’s strained relations with Washington are now having economic consequences.<\/p>\n
SA\u00a0officials have said that their trade negotiations with the US were closely intertwined with geopolitical and even domestic policy issues, including SA’s affirmative action law which Trump disapproves of.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0US government is also unhappy with\u00a0SA\u00a0for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the World Court, and for its land reform policy which aims to address racial inequality in land ownership that is a legacy of apartheid.<\/p>\n
Trump has falsely claimed that the\u00a0SA government is seizing white farmers’ land.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12857,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-12856","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa (SA) faces a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States (US) starting next week, a move expected to cost tens of thousands of jobs after the country failed to secure a trade deal before a deadline set by US President Donald Trump.||South Africa (SA) faces a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States (US) starting next week, a move expected to cost tens of thousands of jobs after the country failed to secure a trade deal before a deadline set by US President Donald Trump.","published_date":null,"news_description":"South Africa (SA) faces a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States (US) starting next week, a move expected to cost tens of thousands of jobs after the country failed to secure a trade deal before a deadline set by US President Donald Trump.||South Africa (SA) faces a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States (US) starting next week, a move expected to cost tens of thousands of jobs after the country failed to secure a trade deal before a deadline set by US President Donald Trump.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18255,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12856\/revisions\/18255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}