South Africa’s cabinet agrees long-delayed budget

South Africa’s cabinet agreed a long-delayed budget that had threatened to unravel the ruling coalition.

The country’s finance minister was forced to postpone unveiling the budget last month after the alliance’s second-biggest party rejected a VAT increase that it said would threaten national stability.

The coalition has been tested in recent weeks after the Trump administration suspended US aid and assistance to South Africa over new laws that it says discriminate against white farmers. Washington has also criticized Pretoria for pursuing a genocide case against Israel. As a diplomatic crisis roils the country, the budget delay was “an unwelcome complication,” wrote Foreign Policy.