The News
South African business leaders and policymakers are relieved but cautious after the US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs, paving the way for a lower blanket levy.
The ruling removes an immediate layer of legal and trade uncertainty for exporters and policymakers. Since August 2025, a 30% US tariff on many South African exports — the highest on the continent — had left companies at a competitive disadvantage relative to other trading partners. The shift to a lower, across-the-board tariff, places South Africa back on roughly equal footing with global peers.
Business leaders said, however, that the bigger story was the volatility they were dealing with. “The ruling is a net benefit, without a doubt,” said Donald MacKay, CEO of XA Global Trade Advisors. “But everyone has to diversify from the US. You don’t know what Donald Trump is going to do next.”
That unpredictability is shaping boardroom strategy. The US remains South Africa’s third-largest trading partner — after the EU and China — with exports spanning from agriculture to chemicals. Yet firms are recalibrating: renegotiating contracts, trimming concentration risk, and building optionality into supply chains.
“The uncertainty is more damaging than the tariff,” MacKay said.
A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pretoria was “observing developments closely” and would continue quiet trade engagement with Washington. The political risk premium attached to the US–South Africa relationship, officials acknowledge privately, has shifted rather than disappeared.
South Africa has frequently featured in Trump’s rhetoric, including unproven claims of a “genocide” against white citizens — allegations that lack credible evidence but have circulated in partisan debate. That political backdrop has heightened concern that trade tools could again be deployed abruptly.
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The tariff reversal marks the latest turn in a volatile period for South Africa’s access to the US market.
The 30% duties imposed in 2025 sharply eroded the advantages previously enjoyed under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which had granted preferential access for many exports. The new universal tariff — announced by the White House in February at 10%, potentially rising to 15% — does not restore AGOA-level access. It does, however, level the field.
Jeff Gable, head of macro research at Absa Corporate and Investment Banking, called the reduction “welcome news for many South African exporters,” noting that the previous 30% rate had placed the country at a clear competitive disadvantage.
But relief is uneven. Automotive and base metals exports remain subject to steep 25% and 50% duties under Section 232 measures, limiting upside in those sectors. Precious metals exports, by contrast, appear unaffected — a significant positive for South Africa’s trade balance.
“For now, it would be pragmatic to assume that broad brushstrokes of international trade relations with the US, including that of South Africa, will not drift too far from recent norms,” said Standard Bank Group Chief Economist Goolam Ballim.
The View From China
South Africa is increasingly looking eastward to hedge against the uncertainty with the US. China is already Pretoria’s largest trading partner: More than $13.5 billion in South African exports, largely minerals and metals, flowed to China in 2025, according to UN Comtrade data. Beijing is simultaneously widening Africa access: Last year it scrapped customs duties on imports from the UN’s 33 “Least Developed” African countries list, helping push Africa–China trade to $296 billion.
Pretoria has moved to lock in that momentum, signing a new agreement aimed at securing duty-free entry for select exports, particularly agricultural goods, into China’s vast consumer market — which imported $207.4 billion in farm products globally in 2025. The pivot does not replace the US. But it reflects a deliberate effort by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government to mitigate exposure to US volatility by anchoring growth to Beijing’s scale and demand.
Notable
- US President Donald Trump is “making China great again,” argue authors in a new policy brief for the European Council on Foreign Relations.