Trump Tariff Deadline Threatens African Exports To US Worth $43 Billion | Firstpost Africa | N18G

[00:00:00]July the 24th, there's Donald Trump's tariff deadline. The clock is ticking down fast, and Africa's $43 billion export market has entered a high stakes countdown.

[00:00:14]Businesses and governments across the continent are bracing for big potential disruptions to their trade with America.

[00:00:23]The whole trade chaos and tariff barrage began last year when Trump returned to the White House. Now, his trade policy has been clearly radical, centered around his America first ideology.

[00:00:38]Back in April of 2025, Trump used his emergency powers to put broad tariffs on goods coming into the US, and African nations bore the brunt of it.

[00:00:50]South Africa was slapped with tariffs as high as 30%.

[00:00:54]However, in February this year, the US Supreme Court struck down most of those tariffs, calling them unlawful. And then the Trump administration had to pay back over $80 billion collected in taxes.

[00:01:11]But the Trump administration did not completely give in to the judicial push back. To work around the court's decision, Trump put in place a new 10% global tariff on imports to replace the one struck down by the Supreme Court.

[00:01:26]And that 10% levy is now set to expire this week, making the 24th of July the major deadline. The White House has already shown how tough its next trade moves will be.

[00:01:41]Now, the administration has lined up new tariffs and has already hit major partners with high penalties. Washington has already announced a fresh 25% duty on certain Brazilian goods and slapped a 50% levy on many Canadian products, which is set to take effect in 30 days.

[00:02:03]Now, these actions show that Washington is willing to act on its own and bypass existing trade talks, and South Africa is in a particularly tight spot in these talks. The country is dealing with a US investigation into how forced labor laws are enforced. Facing a potential 12.5% tariff, it is among the least 60 economies facing the investigation over forced labor.

[00:02:33]Earlier this month, a team of South African officials met with US trade representatives in Washington. The South African side pointed out that their nation enforces strong labor laws that follow international standards.

[00:02:48]They also asked the US for exemptions on key exports including platinum, group metals, vehicles, citrus, wine, and seafood, explaining that forced labor is not present in these industries.

[00:03:04]South Africa has been uh not has not always been in Donald Trump's good books for several reasons. its genocide case against America's ally Israel and black empowerment laws have irked the US president. Trump has even made false claims regarding a white genocide in South Africa and turned an Oval Office meeting with President Ramapora into a dramatic showdown last year in May.

[00:03:34]>> These are articles over the last few days. Uh death of people.

[00:03:41]Death. Death.

[00:03:44]Death. Horrible death.

[00:03:48]Death. And those people in many cases are being executed.

[00:03:53]>> They're being executed. And they happen to be white and most of them happen to be farmers.

[00:03:59]>> And that's a tough situation. I don't know how you explain that.

[00:04:02]>> How do you explain that? Uh they're taking people's land away. Apart from South Africa, the rest of the continent is as worried about Trump's tariff deadline. The stakes are too high for them. The numbers speak for themselves.

[00:04:17]Now, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative in 2025, total trade between the US and Africa reached $83.4 billion with African nations selling $43 billion worth of goods to the US market.

[00:04:35]South Africa is the continent's largest exporter to the American market, shipping vehicles, platinum group metals, gold, iron, and steel products.

[00:04:46]Then comes Nigeria, which exports crude oil, liqufied natural gas, and other energy products. Other major exporters are Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Angola, and Ethiopia.

[00:05:03]On top of these tariffs, there is growing worry over the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the AGOA Act. For more than 20 years, AGOA has let eligible African nations sell thousands of products to the US without paying import taxes.

[00:05:22]Though the US has extended the program through to the end of 2026, its long-term future remains uncertain.

[00:05:31]While Washington is imposing deadlines and stepping up trade barriers, other major global powers are offering simpler trade terms to African nations.

[00:05:42]Take a look at China, one of America's biggest adversaries. It has removed import tariffs for 53 African countries that have diplomatic relations with Beijing, giving almost the entire continent tax-free trade options.

[00:05:59]At the same time, European leaders are reshaping their focus on Africa. French President Emanuel Macron toured Africa in May to present Paris as a steady economic partner.

[00:06:13]Earlier this month, Macron also met with South African President Zor Ramapora to strengthen trade and diplomatic ties.

[00:06:22]It's quite clear that as Trump's policies remain uncertain, African leaders and businesses are adapting to changing world trade rules. The choices made in Washington and across Africa in the coming days will certainly shape the region's trade for a long time to come.

[00:06:43]Now, for more on this, we have with us Patrick Bond, a political economist and distinguished professor at the University of Johannesburg. joining us live from Johannesburg, South Africa.

[00:06:53]Thank you for being with with us again, Patrick.

[00:06:57]>> Great to be with you, Apple. Thanks.

[00:07:01]>> Now, how will Trump's new tariff measures affect African nations? Um, and which countries do you think will be the worst hit?

[00:07:12]>> It is a very um uneven situation. So, we have to be, I think, quite nuanced about the different products, the different countries. certainly the worst hit uh in the 2025 uh round which included the major automobile, steel and aluminium.

[00:07:30]Those those three particularly hit South Africa for example 26,000 cars in 2024 were exported from here to the US and only 6,000 last year. Um, so we're going to continue to see some protectionism of those key markets, but the crucial point is that the US has lots of corporations that need very cheap inputs such as the platinum group metals and some of the other minerals and with the exception of iron and steel and aluminium. Most of those basics, the minerals that uh Donald Trump now sees he he must actually get from Africa much more uh in much greater supplies instead of them going to China. and those have a zero% tariff. But then we've got this very uneven area partly because of the new uh focus on labor rights and that's really a very simple uh attempt by the US to try to block China selling goods that are made in uh the western part of the country where the weaguer people are being oppressed. And so in a very opportunistic way, even though from the late 1980s, the same provision has has been very important to the extent to which labor can be um in a sense uh empowered by trade pressure, sanctions pressure from the US. In South Africa and in Brazil, for example, in the 1980s, workers welcomed those kinds of sanctions. But now Trump who's very anti-worker is really using these as a way to basically indirectly hit hard on South Africa and a few other African countries which bring Chinese parts in and then finished products go to the US.

[00:09:08]AGOA, the AGOA Act, it's set to expire at the end of uh this year. Given the White House's current tariff strategy, is dutyfree access to the American market effectively over for African exporters?

[00:09:25]>> Well, again, um Ellison, it's such an erratic uh Trump and his uh uh foreign ministry, his trade ministry, the trade representative. So we only learned in February that uh having been basically ended last September 2025 that AGOA actually had a second life and even South Africa was allowed to be in AGOA which again helps on those auto exports um as well as citrus and wine and some of the other products that come from South Africa and for many African countries for Nigeria that's an oil uh 0% tariff because energy is is part of the 0% for Egypt for Kenya or lutu with textiles and and clothing there are lots of very interesting little exceptions but it was a pleasant surprise that for those exporters who were uh you know quite reliant on the US market that actually ago was brought back and now the question what happens at the end of this year will it be renewed another year or two or the South Africans want a 15-year renewal I doubt that and of course at the very same time at the end of this year the United States hosts the G20 so just as one signal of the rancor uh that you mentioned the hatred of Donald Trump for South Africa. Uh the South Africans who are hosts this last November of the G20 are not even allowed to come uh to the Florida meeting in December. So it's a very erratic situation. I would guess that uh the Congress has enough uh supporters of AGOA from their business community and connections that it will be renewed. But whether South Africa stays in that remains to be seen.

[00:11:04]China has already reduced tariffs for almost the entire African continent, for 53 African nations, while Europe ramps up diplomacy. How is Washington's aggressive stance inadvertently pushing Africa closer to Beijing and to Paris?

[00:11:24]And is the Trump administration even factoring that in as it makes these tariff moves?

[00:11:32]>> Yes, look with Paris with the whole European uh and may I say neoc colonial relationships. Those have gone also complicated because of the carbon border adjustment mechanism which affects some African countries like South Africa and it's destroyed the aluminium exports earlier this year from Mosmbique next door here as well as fertilizers from Tunisia and the other few other products. The reason is that we have very high carbonintensive energy supplies coal fired power that go into the sort of products especially steel and aluminium that Europe is buying and now it's going to be much more expensive but for China you know the tricky thing we all need to be much less dependent upon the US with a president who has such hostility to the African continent but even by reducing those tariffs on uh uh so many imports that go into China they're still mostly raw materials their cash crops South Africa will benefit quite a bit from the decline in the tariffs on our citrus for example but also um the iron the minerals the fossil fuels and that's where I fear that the other side of this equation from China which is so-called dumping where they sell products here below what their sales price is in the home market and that's what the allegation is by our South African government and trade unions and the metals industry and the you know automobiles and the uh tires nuts and bolts, washing machines, all sorts of products are being contested from China over the last year because China under pressure from Trump and not able to export so much the US has displaced a lot of that into Africa and frankly the the dumping I think is uh doing more damage than lowering the tariffs on African imports and it just locks us all into a neoc colonial export the raw materials, import the finished products. We we must do better than that.

[00:13:24]Patrick, it's always great to have you on the show. Thank you.

[00:13:27]>> Thank you. Thanks, Alice.

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