Africa braces for fallout from Trump’s tariffs
Publish date: 04 August 2025
Issue Number: 1137
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Trade
African countries are bracing for the fallout from US President Donald Trump's revised tariffs, which now come into effect on 7 August, after many of the continent's leaders failed to convince the world's most affluent country not to impose punitive trade measures, notes Legalbrief. African countries had scrambled for last-minute negotiations ahead of Trump's announcement of tariffs on Thursday night. According to CBS News, SA, which has had a strained relationship with Trump, is the only African country singled out in the announcement with a 30% tariff increase. Most other African countries have been hit with tariffs of 10-15%. South African Trade Minister Parks Tau said he, other Ministers and people across all sectors, from business to civil society, had been working for months to negotiate a deal with Washington, including offering to invest $3.3bn in US industries and buy natural gas, but there was no response. He said there was no response to their initial offer until Wednesday evening, when US officials told them to improve their offer in a last-minute appeal.
In a statement Thursday night, Tau said: ‘We are working with urgency and resolve to implement real, practical interventions that defend jobs and position South Africa competitively in a shifting global landscape.’ Nearly 70 countries face Trump’s import duties that were due to come into force on 1 August, most were delayed at the last minute and will begin on 7 August, reports Al Jazeera. Trump sees the tariffs as an economic tool of power that will put US exporters in a stronger position, by keeping out imports and encouraging domestic manufacturing. While the situation remains dynamic, different levies will be imposed on countries. SA would use the week-long delay to negotiate, to avoid the penalty and save jobs, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday. ‘Intensive negotiations are now under way,’ Ramaphosa. 'Our task is to negotiate as strongly and as hard as we can with the United States,’ he said. ‘Our objective, really, is to save jobs.’
Ramaphosa opted for a measured response to Washington’s 30% import duties, stressing diplomacy over confrontation and insisting targeted relief would blunt the effect, reports BusinessLIVE. ‘All channels of communication remain open to engage with the US and our negotiators are ready pending invitation from the US,’ Ramaphosa said. The US confirmed the tariff wall on SA exports, except on products that include copper, pharmaceutical products, critical minerals and energy goods. The confirmation came hours after Pretoria triggered an emergency plan to counteract the tariffs. It launched an Export Support Desk to help firms with compliance and diplomatic linkages. Ramaphosa said the government was working on interventions to cushion the blow to key industries such as the automotive and agricultural sectors. ‘The package consists of a number of measures to assist companies, producers and workers affected by the tariffs on SA exports to the US. The details … will be announced in due course,’ he said. Agriculture Minister and Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa must take a more hands-on approach to avert an economic crisis. ‘The President needs to find time to meet his GNU partners,' Steenhuisen said.
EWN reports that the ANC believes the 30% tariffs have nothing to do with policies such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) or the expropriation of land without compensation. Electricity & Energy Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa spoke to journalists following deliberations by the ANC's national executive committee on issues pertaining to the country’s economy on Saturday. ‘Over 90 countries are experiencing US tariff imposition, so SA is not isolated as a result, as some may argue, of our policies like BEE and expropriation. Some of them are historic and close allies to the US. So, we don’t feel isolated,’ said Ramokgopa. He said the ANC believed the government must do everything possible to preserve its relationship with the US.
News24 reports that government is hoping Ramaphosa will make a personal call to Trump to have the 30% import tariffs postponed again. Trump’s import tariffs could cause a jobs bloodbath if they come into effect on Thursday. More than 90 countries are affected, but SA is one of only 11 countries whose tariffs are 30% or higher. Two senior government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, say all attempts to negotiate last week ended in deadlock. Even with International Relations & Co-operation Minister Ronald Lamola visiting Washington, team SA could not make any headway.
Dr Boitshoko Ntshabele, CEO of the Citrus Growers Association, said the 30% tariff would be felt acutely in rural communities in the Northern and Western Cape. According to the Daily Maverick, Ntshabele said it was still possible to reach a trade deal with the US before 7 August and called on Ramaphosa to renew ‘intensive negotiations.’ Ntshabele welcomed the department’s emergency measures, but said without a deal growers faced a ‘potentially devastating scenario.’ Cosatu said it was ‘extremely concerned’ about the impact of the tariff. ‘We fear the devastation this will wreak upon farmworkers in the citrus industry from the Western Cape to Limpopo, to motor manufacturing workers from the Eastern Cape to Gauteng. No company can compete with 30% tariffs. Many may close,’ said Cosatu. It said SA has been made ‘a global skunk’ as comparatively far better tariffs of 15% were announced for neighbouring states. The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber said it was a ‘big blow for local businesses, especially in the automotive and agricultural sectors.'
A single factory in Gqeberha, which builds highly sophisticated machinery and software for the automotive industry, has lost contracts worth R750m due to the new import tariffs. City Press reports that Jendamark Automation is one of many SA enterprises – businesses that export everything from high-level manufacturing to processed agricultural products like ostrich leather and raisins – whose products have become 30% more expensive overnight. Additionally, they are in the dark about Pretoria’s negotiations with Washington. The 500 employees at Jendamark Automation build automated assembly lines and develop production software for automotive manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. They also have offices in the US and Germany, and another production facility in India.
The Department of Agriculture is doing ‘everything in its power to protect SA’s market access, save jobs and make trade a tool for shared prosperity – not a casualty of geopolitical realignment’ reports Business Day. Steenhuisen said his department shared the agricultural sector’s deep concerns. ‘These measures are deeply unjust and pose a serious threat to jobs, livelihoods and the competitiveness of one of SA’s most globally integrated sectors,’ he said. SA Wine and the Citrus Growers Association of Southern Africa are appealing to the government to intensify negotiations to avoid long-term harm to trade, investment and employment in their sectors. SA agriculture is heavily orientated to exports, worth $13.7bn in 2024. SA Wine representative Christo Conradie said the tariff decision placed the industry at a severe disadvantage to countries that benefit from lower tariffs. The SA Table Grape Industry is also concerned about potential secondary effects of the tariffs on global markets. According to SA Wine, losing access to the US market would affect the entire supply chain from packaging and logistics to foreign currency inflows.
Lesotho has had its US export tariff reduced from a threatened 50% to 15% but its crucial textile industry still faces massive factory closures, officials said on Friday. According to the Washington Post, despite a reduction announced by Trump, the country’s textile sector says it remains at a competitive disadvantage and faces ongoing factory closures and job losses. In April, the Trump administration announced a 50% tariff on imports from Lesotho, the highest among all countries. The tariffs were paused across the board but the anticipated increase wreaked havoc across the country’s textile industry, which is its biggest private sector employer with over 30 000 workers. About 12 000 of these workers work for garment factories exporting to the US market, supplying American retailers like Levi’s and Wrangler. AP reported that clothing manufacturer Tzicc has seen business dry up ahead of the expected tariff increase, sending home most of its 300 workers who have made and exported sportswear to American stores, including JCPenney, Walmart and Costco. David Chen, chairperson of the Lesotho Textile Exporters, has warned that the US Government’s move to reduce the tariffs offer little relief for the struggling industry as their competitors have lesser tariffs. Chen singled out Kenya as its strongest competitor with a more favourable 10% tariff. According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, in 2024, US-Lesotho bilateral trade stood at $240.1m. Apart from clothing, Lesotho’s exports also include diamonds and Lesotho’s Minister of Trade, Industry & Business Development, Mokhethi Shelile, said that while several meetings with US trade representatives led to a reduced tariff, more needed to be done to lower it further.
But what could become a crisis is an opportunity for US rival China, which has long courted African countries and is now offering them a lifeline, CNN reports. ’We (Africa) are going straight into the hands of China,’ said Nigerian economist Bismarck Rewane. ‘That is the unfortunate outcome,’ Rewane said of Africa’s expected further shift toward China, which has emerged in recent years as the continent’s largest bilateral trading partner. Four African nations – Libya, SA, Algeria and Tunisia – face some of the steepest tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, with charges on exports ranging from 25% to 30%. Eighteen other countries from the continent were hit with 15% levies, a modified tariff package released Thursday by the White House showed.
RFI reports that some countries had previously benefitted from duty-free access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), so the new 15% tariff represents a significant new cost for exporters. In several cases, though, the 15% rate is lower than what Trump had threatened in April. Lesotho had faced a proposed 50% tariff, Madagascar 47, Botswana 37, Angola 32 and Zimbabwe 17. In others, it is higher than what was floated earlier. The DRC and Cameroon had been told 11 %, and Nigeria 14%. A number of countries have already been hit hard by the shift in US trade policy.
The tariffs will compel foreign producers to lower their price, but these decreases only partially offset the cost of the tariffs, so US consumers pay higher prices, reports The Conversation. Businesses also pay more for parts and materials. Ultimately, these higher prices hurt the US economy. The tariffs decrease US merchandise imports by $486.7bn. But as they drive up the cost of US supply chains and shift more workers and resources into industries that compete with imports, away from other parts of the economy, they also decrease US merchandise exports by $451.1bn. Although the revised reciprocal tariffs are, on average, lower than those announced on 2 April, they are still a substantial shock to the global trading system. Financial markets have been buoyant since Trump paused reciprocal tariffs on 9 April, partly in the hope that the tariffs would never be imposed. US tariffs of at least 10% to 15% now appear to be the new norm. As US warehouses run down inventories and stockpiles, there could be a rocky road ahead.
