South Africa's presidency expresses concerns over new US tariffs

As the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes continue to reverberate around the world, South Africa’s presidency has expressed its concerns.

“While we remain committed to a mutually beneficial trade relationship with the United States, unilaterally imposed and punitive tariffs are a concern and serve as a barrier to trade and shared prosperity,” it said in a statement.

It said the tariffs highlight the urgent need to negotiate a new bilateral and mutually beneficial trade agreement with the US, as an essential step to secure long-term trade certainty.

Trump imposed a 30 per cent rate on the country which exports a wide range of products to the United States, which is its second largest export destination.

South African economist Xhanti Payi said the country has “has a quite an expansive trade relation with the US”.

“It is on what we call hard commodities - that would include things like steel. Then the soft commodities, that would be, as you say, agricultural products, that would include citrus, grapes and all of that,” he said.

He added, however that the country also exports many other products to the US, including over $2 billion dollars of vehicles and parts.

“So all of these are sectors that are quite key to South Africa, that are quite important, and that will be affected.”

Payi said he believes smaller countries will be the most hit by Trump’s tariffs because “they are not very well diversified economies”.

“South Africa has quite a diversified group of exports and those are diversified into different kinds of countries.”

The South African rand weakened to a three-month low on Wednesday, hit by both the tariff hike and fears the pro-business Democratic Alliance could exit the country’s coalition government because of a disagreement over the country’s 2025 budget.