It was published on Monday, nearly three months after it was due to be delivered to Congress, after most of the staff in the office that prepares it were laid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brazil and South Africa were moved to the report\u2019s \u201cTier 2 Watch List,” meaning they must demonstrate greater efforts on the issue or face possible US sanctions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Failure to address the United States’ concerns could see the countries categorised as Tier 3 countries. Countries in this tier are subject to potential non-humanitarian and non-trade sanctions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Governments on Tier 3 may be subject to certain restrictions on foreign assistance, whereby the President may determine not to provide US government nonhumanitarian, nontrade-related foreign assistance,” the report states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, the President may determine to withhold funding for government official or employee participation in educational and cultural exchange programs in the case of certain Tier 3 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The President may also determine to instruct the US Executive Director of each multilateral development bank and the International Monetary Fund to vote against and use their best efforts to deny any loans or other uses of the institutions\u2019 funds to a designated Tier 3 country for most purposes\u2014except for humanitarian, trade-related, and certain development-related assistance.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US President may waive restrictions if necessary to avoid significant adverse effects on vulnerable populations, including women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any country that has been ranked Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years and that would otherwise be ranked Tier 2 Watch List for the next year will instead be ranked Tier 3 in that third year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the human trafficking watch list’s sanctions are nonhumanitarian and nontrade, President Donald Trump has already targeted South Africa, pulling humanitarian aid from the country over what he deemed as human rights grounds, earlier in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further to this, lawmakers in the Senate and in the House have also launched two proposed bills<\/strong><\/a> to fully review the trade relationship between the US and South Africa, including a proposal to sanction government officials and ANC politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n For both South Africa and Brazil, the report noted significant efforts on human trafficking, but said those efforts were not sufficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On South Africa, the report said: “Significant efforts included launching the country\u2019s first sub-provincial task team and convicting more traffickers. However, the government identified fewer victims, investigated fewer cases, and initiated fewer prosecutions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report said Brazil’s government initiated fewer investigations and prosecutions than in previous years, and courts had reported fewer initial convictions for trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Donald Trump has accused South Africa, without evidence, of persecuting its white minority. He has also launched a refugee program for white South Africans and imposed steep tariffs on the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, a Republican, has imposed tariffs on Brazil, alongside visa restrictions and financial sanctions in response to the trial and conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Human trafficking is a horrific and devastating crime that also enriches transnational criminal organizations and immoral, anti-American regimes,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, which did not discuss the country-specific rankings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Trump Administration is dedicated to upholding American values, protecting American workers, and defending our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In previous years, State Department officials have answered reporters’ questions on the report, but this year no one was made available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democratic lawmakers earlier this month raised concerns about the delayed release of the TIP report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas testified to Congress in July that staffing in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which produces the report, was reduced by 71% as the State Department cut over 1,300 staff earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questioned by US Representative Sarah McBride on the reduction, Rigas defended the cuts by saying those who were laid off were mainly involved in writing reports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (With Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US State Department has put South Africa on a human trafficking watch list, with the threat of sanctions if it does not show progress in dealing with the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":828901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1505,10022],"class_list":["post-838604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-sanctions","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838604","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=838604"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838619,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838604\/revisions\/838619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Human-Trafficking-watch-list.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nNot doing enough<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Ramaphosa-Trump-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n