South Africa\u2019s biggest political party said the government won\u2019t bow to demands from Donald Trump\u2019s administration to change its policies even if that means its leaders are subjected to US sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American lawmakers are considering a bill that seeks a review of Washington\u2019s bilateral relations with Pretoria because of its foreign-policy stance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Proposed by Texas Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson in April, the draft legislation states that South Africa has abandoned its relationship with the US while aligning itself with China, Russia, Iran and \u201cterrorist organizations,\u201d and raises the prospect of unidentified \u201ccorrupt officials\u201d being censured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
America is meanwhile set to impose 30% tariffs on imports from South Africa from Thursday, the highest duty charged on goods from any sub-Saharan African nation, part of a shakeup of its relationship with its trading partners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration has made a raft of demands, including that South Africa abandon laws that were put in place after apartheid ended in 1994 and are aimed at addressing persisting racial inequality, said Fikile Mbalula, the secretary-general of the African National Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party governed the country outright for three decades before losing its parliamentary majority in last year\u2019s elections, and it subsequently entered into an alliance with nine rivals to retain power.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey want us to do away with certain policies. It is not going to be possible,\u201d Mbalula told reporters in Johannesburg on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf it means we are going to suffer through sanctions as leaders of the ANC, let it be. We will never back imperialists to subvert our democracy, to subvert our sovereignty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If they want to bring sanctions on us, let them bring them<\/strong>,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Relations between South Africa and the US have been fraught since Trump returned to the White House in January. He has falsely accused the African nation\u2019s government of presiding over a genocide of White farmers, and criticized its international allegiances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The new tariffs will place 30,000 jobs at risk in South Africa, according to the trade department, exacerbating one of the world\u2019s worst unemployment crises. The auto and agricultural sectors will be hardest hit, with the US a major export market for both industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the tariffs will negatively affect South Africa\u2019s economy, making any concessions that undermined the national interest wasn\u2019t an option, Mbalula said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Trump administration is asking us to abandon the essence of who we are and that is not going to be possible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we are punished for advancing and defending South Africa, that should be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ANC says the government won\u2019t bow to demands from Donald Trump\u2019s administration to change its policies even if that means its leaders are subjected to US sanctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":755463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1875,10409],"class_list":["post-834265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-anc","tag-fikile-mbalula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834265","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=834265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834266,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834265\/revisions\/834266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}