South Africa’s trade minister said he was hopeful a trade pact giving many African countries preferential access to the US market will be extended ahead of its expiry later this year.
“We haven’t given up on it,” Parks Tau told Bloomberg Television in New York on Tuesday, referring to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which gives duty-free access to some key industrial exports.
“We continue to lobby, both in the administration and in Congress. And we’re getting some sentiment that it would be ideal if it were extended. So, we have to continue to work hard.”
The future of Agoa — approved by the US in 2000 and designed to assist sub-Saharan African economies — has been thrown into doubt by President Donald Trump’s trade wars.
Even if it is extended, its benefits could be undone by his imposition of tariffs, including one of 30% for South Africa.
Tau, who met US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer last week, reiterated that talks between the two countries over bilateral trade are progressing, with South Africa keen to get its tariff reduced.
The parties have agreed to a roadmap to guide future negotiations, he said.
“We are beyond the issues that happened a few months ago,” Tau said.
“I anticipate that we’re going to have constructive, no doubt difficult, discussions. It’s very difficult to anticipate what will happen. We are going into these discussions with an open mind.”
There has been no public update from the US on the state of negotiations.
The US is Pretoria’s second-largest trading partner after China, and Trump’s tariffs, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, could hammer South African sales of vehicles and agricultural products, including citrus and wine, to the world’s largest economy.
Tau’s meeting with Greer followed months of frosty relations between the countries.
Trump has falsely claimed South Africa’s government is allowing a genocide of White Afrikaans farmers.
Trump has also criticised South Africa’s Black economic empowerment laws meant to undo apartheid-era discrimination.
In May, he berated President Cyril Ramaphosa at an Oval Office meeting.
South Africa received a further blow this week when Taiwan — citing national security concerns — restricted its ability to buy microchips.
That was an unusual move by Taiwan to use its dominance of the semiconductor market to pressure South Africa over its close alliance with China.
The decision came after Pretoria sought to downgrade Taipei’s representative office and force it to relocate to Johannesburg from the capital, Taiwan’s foreign ministry has said.
Tau declined to comment on South Africa’s response or the likely ramifications, saying he needed to look into the issue more closely.
Ramaphosa, in separate remarks in New York on Tuesday, played down the potential impact of the move.
“Their reduction of exports to South Africa obviously will impact on us, but we will always find a way of dealing with them or with that issue,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations.
“We recognise China and we have the one state, one China policy, which many other countries also recognize,” he said.
On the trade talks with Washington, the president said that recent investment from companies like Amazon.com and Google in data centers in the country show it’s an attractive place for US firms to do business.
“We’ve got 600 US companies that have retained their interest in South Africa and many more still want to come and invest,” he said.
“They see South Africa as an entry gate into the rest of the continent, correctly so.”
BLOOMBERG