Trump tariffs were ‘a wake-up call for us,’ says Ramaphosa

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US President Donald Trump’s overhaul of Washington’s tariff policy has been a “wake-up call” for South Africa, driving the country to strengthen trade relationships with the rest of the world, its leader said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his officials had been reaching out to trading partners in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America in order to deepen ties. But he acknowledged that the US, South Africa’s second-largest trading partner after China, remained crucial: “We want to retain that [relationship], but we also want to diversify, because it’s dangerous to depend only on a few countries.”

Ramaphosa, who was speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, is facing not only 30% tariffs on his country’s exports to the US, but also next week’s likely expiration of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade deal between the US and African nations. Ramaphosa again voiced his support for AGOA to continue and said his country’s trade representatives had been in talks with US officials.

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Under AGOA, qualifying African products had duty-free access to US markets, a major boon for South Africa’s agricultural, automotive, and manufacturing exports. But as of August, many South African goods now face 30% tariffs from Washington — a rate among the highest applied to any sub-Saharan AGOA beneficiary.

Economists warn the new US tariffs risk undermining the South African economy, particularly in key exposed sectors like wine, citrus, and metals, and could lead to job losses estimated in the tens of thousands.

In response to fraying ties with Washington, South Africa has turned to Beijing, with Chinese firms this week announcing hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in industries including mining and manufacturing in Africa’s biggest economy. Beijing also recently extended tariff-free trade to South Africa and 52 other nations on the continent.