South Africa is officially one of the countries that will see a 90 day pause in US president Donald Trump’s higher reciprocal tariffs, according to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
South Africa has been included in the list of the countries that will see a 90-day pause in US president Donald Trump’s higher reciprocal tariffs, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau has confirmed.
Tariffs of 31% kicked in against South Africa on Wednesday, but Trump reversed course later in the day, announcing a pause for countries that had engaged with his administration to negotiate, and did not impose any retaliatory tariffs.
“We’ve received a note about the decisions that were made yesterday, and our team did have interface with the US embassy yesterday with regards to the overall engagements with the US,” Tau said in an interview with 702’s Bongani Bingwa on Thursday morning.
“So yes, we have received confirmation that in fact that the [31%] has been removed from the list – so to say.”
However, Trump’s across-the-board 10% import tariff also still applies to South Africa.
“Part of the reality is that it is not completely off.”
This means US import duties on SA exports that benefited from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) are now 10%, from 0% previously.
When asked what South Africa was bringing to the table in its talks with the US, Tau said the US wanted an arrangement that was “mutually beneficial”.
“They have seen that the tariffs and trade structures have been disproportionately skewed in our favour… so they would want to have a discussion around that.
“I should say that we have already started raising with the US the need to revive the trade and investment facilitation agreement that we had with the US so that we are able to normalise issues about trade between the two respective countries.”
This would include issues around agriculture and direct investment, Tau said.
Markets have been fluctuating wildly since Trump’s announcement of the sweeping global tariffs a week ago on what he called “Liberation Day” before his dramatic pause on Wednesday.
While there is a general pause in the higher tariffs, the trade war is escalating between the US and China.
On Wednesday – even as he paused higher reciprocal tariffs for dozens of countries that have not hiked their US import tariffs – he hiked duties on China from 104% to 125%.
China now has an 84% tariff on all US imports.
