Reuters<\/a> reported.\n <\/p>\n\n Pretoria had been negotiating for months to avert the tariff hike, proposing to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas and pledging $3.3 billion in investments into American industries. But those overtures fell short, even after a last-minute attempt to sweeten the deal.\n <\/p>\n
\n South African Trade Minister Parks Tau called the tariff escalation a direct threat to the country\u2019s export-driven sectors, particularly automotive manufacturing, agro-processing, steel, and chemicals.\n <\/p>\n
\n The U.S. is South Africa\u2019s second-largest bilateral trading partner after China. Key South African exports to the U.S. include vehicles, iron and steel products, and citrus fruits.\n <\/p>\n
Political tensions cloud trade talks<\/p>\n
\n Relations between South Africa and the United States have sharply declined since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.\n <\/p>\n
\n The fallout reflects deeper strains in U.S.-South Africa relations. According to South African officials, trade negotiations were entangled with political frictions, most notably Washington\u2019s disapproval of South Africa\u2019s affirmative action policies, its land reform agenda, and its decision to bring a genocide case against Israel, a close U.S. ally, before the International Court of Justice.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump, who has repeatedly criticised South Africa\u2019s policies, has falsely accused the government of forcibly seizing land from white farmers.\n <\/p>\n
\n In response, the South African government defended its stance, calling the land reform effort a constitutional measure aimed at addressing historical racial inequalities in land ownership dating back to apartheid. Officials also stressed that, contrary to international speculation, no land expropriations have occurred.\n <\/p>\n
\n The looming tariffs are expected to ripple through South Africa\u2019s economy, threatening tens of thousands of jobs and adding further pressure to an already fragile economic outlook.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa is set to face a 30% tariff on its exports to the United States starting next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-52886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}