{"id":833926,"date":"2025-08-04T09:10:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=833926"},"modified":"2025-08-04T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:10:05","slug":"ramaphosa-scrambles-after-the-us-tariff-horse-has-bolted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/833926\/ramaphosa-scrambles-after-the-us-tariff-horse-has-bolted\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa scrambles after the US tariff horse has bolted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The government has announced a non-descript package of interventions and support for businesses that will be hit by the 30% tariff when it comes into effect this week, but more needs to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration confirmed last week that South Africa would be slapped with a 30% tariff on exports to the United States come 7 August 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite knowing about the tariff for months\u2014since its announcement on 2 April\u2014the government was betting on diplomatic engagements and trade negotiations to soften the blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this bet did not pay off. It became apparent over the past few weeks in particular that the US government had iced South Africa’s negotiators out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state eventually admitted, at the 11th hour, that political issues like black economic empowerment<\/strong><\/a> were high among the problems that the country faced in talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These issues were flagged by unofficial delegations a month ago<\/strong><\/a>, but were met with contempt by the South African government in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, the Department of Trade and Industry conceded<\/strong><\/a> that “political issues” played a role in South Africa landing up with one of the highest tariffs imposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While negotiations will likely continue and South Africa’s trade offer fine-tuned, Washington’s deadline has passed, and the 30% tariff is coming<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the government is scrambling to find ways to protect industries after the proverbial horse has already bolted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that \u201ca number of measures\u201d will be implemented to assist companies affected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our foremost priority is protecting our export industries. We will continue to engage the US in an attempt to preserve market access for our products,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We must also accelerate the diversification of our export markets, particularly by deepening intra-African trade.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the measures are nondescript, and affected businesses will have to wait an indeterminate amount of time for the government to outline what will actually be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, the government has launched an ‘Export Support Desk’, which companies affected by tariffs can contact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president said the government “will in due course announce the modalities of a support package for companies, producers and workers that have been rendered vulnerable by the US tariffs”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still vague on detail, the president said the intervention will guide industries looking to expand into new markets in the rest of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and markets South Africa already has trade agreements with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this will come as cold comfort to businesses that have already lost millions overnight<\/strong><\/a> from the tariff just being confirmed in the US executive order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, while the government had been preparing contingencies in the event that the tariff went through, it didn’t know what to plan for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister, Parks Tau, said that the department couldn’t formulate packages until it knew what the final tariff would be and which industries would be impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa said that, now that the tariff is confirmed, the state will “scale up our trade missions into new markets” and grow the pool of export ready companies. This will happen “in the coming months”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Complacency will not serve us, and building resilience is imperative. As a government, we remain committed to ongoing engagement with the US and building trade resilience,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a crisis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the export desk and coming interventions\u2014whatever they are\u2014are welcome measures, Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) chief executive Busi Mavuso says the state needs to do more, and faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These (interventions) need to be put in place quickly or we risk catastrophic collapse of manufacturing and farming businesses,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is particularly true for regions like the Eastern Cape which has major automotive industry supply chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that South Africa is in a crisis, and the government’s response needs to match this reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, she said that the state should engage with businesses and establish a Trade Crisis Committee to urgently plot a path forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee should include business leaders and government officials, including the National Treasury, and should mimic the crisis response seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 KwaZulu-Natal riots, and the 2022-2024 load shedding crisis, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Businesses have a great deal of experience in understanding what makes access to a new market feasible and what frustrates it,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are many parts of the story, starting with logistics and the physical challenges of getting goods to a new location, through to the trade policies of the markets we could be serving.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the government should also move swiftly to implement temporary loan schemes and employment support programmes, which will be essential to prevent a jobs catastrophe as factories face closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Presidency’s coordinating role has been crucial in these examples, bringing together multiple government actors for rapid decision-making and joint problem-solving,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Business and government working together will be vastly more effective than either sector attempting to navigate this crisis alone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After failing to negotiate a better deal for South Africa over the past four months, the government is now scrambling to find ways to protect the industries affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":833716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15351,1293],"class_list":["post-833926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-blsa","tag-cyril-ramaphosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833930,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833926\/revisions\/833930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}