As the sweeping new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on goods imported to the United States kick in, Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said South Africa should be exploring new markets for its products.
IOL reported earlier on Wednesday that when President Donald Trump announced the sweeping new tariffs on more than 100 countries last week, South Africa was placed in the category labelled “worst offenders” and hit with a 30% tariff on exports to the United States.
The tariffs on South Africa and the rest of the world are set to take effect on Wednesday, April 9.
Steenhuisen, in an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika that South Africa should seek to mend fences with the United States, one of the biggest trading partners, while Pretoria considers new markets for its products.
"I am deeply concerned about the imposition of those tariffs, I think that the method used to calculate them is incorrect. We are querying that. Government itself has had high-level meetings last week with a variety of ministers. Minister (Parks) Tau and Minister (Ronald) Lamola issued a statement about how we intend to proceed.
"It is very, very clear, South Africa needs to prepare itself for a post-Agoa world," said Steenhuisen who is South Africa's Minister of Agriculture.
He said the tariffs imposed by Trump nullify the Agoa benefits which were streaming to South Africa in terms of agricultural products the automobile industry.
"We do need to start to navigate this new world. Obviously we have to focus on two key things. Firstly, rebuilding some form of relationship with the United States of America and making sure that we can start to get our story to Washington in an unfiltered way, and to open those channels of communication," said Steenhuisen.
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"The second part of the process is going to be identifying new markets for South African manufactured goods and agricultural goods. That process is underway so that we can avoid any potential shock should we crash out of Agoa in November."
Trump insisted "very bad things" are taking place in South Africa. However, Steenhuisen said the situation on the ground in South Africa is different from what Trump believes.
"Well, I think that certainly what is happening in South Africa does not (have) resemblance to what Mr Trump may think is happening. Let me be clear, there is no widespread expropriation of property in South Africa, there is no genocide in South Africa.
"I think what we are seeing is a response to a number of years of poor policy decisions, bad legislation and bad positioning publicly which has got us into the crosshairs of the Trump administration. We can't change who sits in the White House, that is beyond our control, but we can manage how we navigate these next four years," said Steenhuisen.
In imposing the heavy tariffs, Trump also claimed South Africa has been “ripping off” US taxpayers and insisted Pretoria imposes 60% tariffs on American goods.
However, this claim is false.
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Just days before announcing the tariffs, Trump’s own administration released its 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, which contradicts his assertion.
The report found that “South Africa’s average Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) applied tariff rate is just 7.6% — with 7.4% for non-agricultural products and 8.5% for agricultural products”. It further noted that tariffs of 60% or more are applied only to niche agricultural products bound under WTO rules — such as sugar or dairy — and are rarely levied on actual US exports to South Africa.
Moreover, South Africa’s tariff structure is aligned with WTO norms. A total of 93.8% of its tariff lines are bound, providing predictability and transparency.
So how did Trump justify the 30% tariff on South Africa?
The new tariff rates were calculated using what Trump calls a “reciprocal trade formula”. In essence: if a country exports more to the US than it imports from it, the surplus is treated as a form of exploitation — or, in Trump’s words, “pillaging”.
Using this formula, the Trump administration took the trade deficit, divided it by the value of US imports from each country, and used that figure to justify a reciprocal tariff.
In South Africa’s case, a trade surplus — largely in cars, platinum, and citrus — became the basis for Trump’s 60% claim.
IOL