South Africa faces a 30% tariff on its exports to the 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.
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. The order said the higher import duty rates would take effect in seven days.
South Africa has tried for months to negotiate a deal with Washington and offered to buy US liquefied natural gas and invest US$3.3-billion in US industries in exchange for lower tariffs. But the effort was unsuccessful, even after Pretoria made a last-minute attempt to improve its offer.
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.
“We are working with urgency and resolve to implement real, practical interventions that defend jobs and position South Africa competitively in a shifting global landscape,” Tau said in a statement late on Thursday.
The US is South Africa’s second largest bilateral trading partner after China. South Africa’s top exports to the US include cars, iron and steel products, and citrus fruit.
The tariff hike underscores how South Africa’s strained relations with Washington are now having economic consequences. South African officials have said that their trade negotiations with the US were closely intertwined with geopolitical and even domestic policy issues, including South Africa’s affirmative action laws which Trump disapproves of.
Read: Ramaphosa blasts Trump over threatened Brics tariffs
The US government is also unhappy with South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel and for its land reform policy which aims to address racial inequality in land ownership that is a legacy of apartheid. Trump has falsely claimed that the South African government is seizing white farmers’ land. — Nellie Peyton, Nelson Banya, Sfundo Parakozov and Siyanda Mthethwa, (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP
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