Tariff is the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”, according to US President Donald Trump. And he’s officially gone tariff mad on what he’s declared as Liberation Day, 2 April.
Thursday’s much-anticipated announcement unveiled sweeping new taxes for foreign-made goods being sold to US consumers. Starting 5 April, a universal 10% tariff will hit all US imports. From 9 April, it gets even more intense, with around 60 countries singled out for more extreme measures. No surprise, South Africa is one of them, with 30% levied on our exports. (Others include 34% on China, 20% on the European Union, 46% on Vietnam and 32% on Taiwan.)
He claimed these tariffs would boost local manufacturing and protect American jobs, even as economists warned they could do the opposite. Trump justified the tariffs by citing longstanding US trade deficits, where the country imports more than it exports, arguing the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.”
His administration says the new levies were calculated based on the size of each country’s trade surplus with the US — the bigger the gap, the higher the tariff.
The SA Presidency expressed concern in a statement issued this morning and is still trying to talk up its commitment to “a mutually beneficial trade relationship with the United States”. The US is South Africa’s second-largest export market, accounting for almost a tenth of our total exports.
