{"id":865620,"date":"2026-07-07T10:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=865620"},"modified":"2026-07-07T10:28:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:28:48","slug":"south-africa-takes-its-case-to-the-united-states-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/865620\/south-africa-takes-its-case-to-the-united-states-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa takes its case to the United States this week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A three-day hearing<\/a>\u00a0on the US Trade Representative\u2019s latest plan to impose tariffs on major trading partners, including South Africa, kicks off in Washington on Tuesday (7 July).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US launched an investigation into the forced-labour prohibition policies of 60 countries in March, citing a law that authorises tariffs on countries deemed to unfairly burden US commerce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That basis is viewed as more legally sound than the emergency power President Donald Trump invoked last year to impose tariffs, which the Supreme Court ruled illegal in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USTR determined in early June<\/a> that each of the investigated economies failed to \u201cimpose and effectively enforce a forced labor import prohibition,\u201d and recommended that goods imported into the US from those economies face an additional 10% or 12.5% duty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the process, dozens of stakeholders will make their case\u2014for or against the duties\u2014to US trade officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House officials have already\u00a0made it clear<\/a>\u00a0that they plan to use the forced labour and other investigations to restore import taxes to levels in place under Trump\u2019s emergency tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, the administration has a temporary 10% global tariff in place that expires later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday, 7 July<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Up first in the forced-labour lineup, USTR will hear from a panel of government officials, including Mexico\u2019s Ernesto Acevedo Fern\u00e1ndez, on \u201chow Mexico\u2019s\u00a0USMCA Forced Labour Mechanism\u00a0effectively enforces our forced-labour import prohibition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diplomats and trade officials from Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras and Peru are also set to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second panel on Tuesday will feature the\u00a0American Line Pipe Producers Association<\/a>\u00a0and the Steel Manufacturers Association. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The groups will testify in favour of duties to counter what they call a flood of imports of steel mill and steel-containing products, in part driven by low labour standards and the absence of import bans on goods produced with forced labour.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Petroleum Institute will ask USTR to drop duties on industrial inputs that are critical to the\u00a0oil and gas industry<\/a>, which the lobby group says have no link to forced labour and \u201csimply cannot be sourced domestically either at all, or in sufficient quantities, by the industry responsible for meeting the Trump Administration\u2019s aim of US energy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later on, a former USTR official will argue that these investigations betray the intended uses of Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, according to prepared testimony shared with Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSenior administration officials have described their purpose as not to address unreasonable \u2018acts, policies, and practices\u2019 burdening US commerce, but to recreate the tariff rates set under last year\u2019s illegal \u2018IEEPA\u2019 decrees,\u201d said Ed Gresser, who is now vice president and director for trade and global markets at the Progressive Policy Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gresser is set to argue that the\u00a0USTR\u2019s report<\/a>\u00a0does not prove that the listed economies buy imports of goods made with forced labour, nor that they impose a burden on American commerce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTherefore, the tariffs it recommends \u2014 again, roughly $100 billion a year in new costs for Americans \u2014 are inappropriate and ought not to stand,\u201d Gresser said. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday, 8 July<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
US Trade Representative Jamison Greer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Seafood will call for\u00a0an additional higher rate<\/a>\u00a0on seafood from Vietnam, especially in the processing industry, which the group says is particularly vulnerable to forced and child labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representatives from India, Jordan and Pakistan are also scheduled to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistan\u2019s representative is expected to argue that the USTR\u2019s recommendations are \u201cdisproportionate given the absence of evidence of forced labour in Pakistani export goods and Pakistan\u2019s enactment of an import prohibition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human rights groups, including China Labour Watch, are supposed to testify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

China Labour Watch will argue that \u201cany preferential tariff treatment, including the proposed textile mechanism or similar sector-specific mechanisms, should apply only to products that can be credibly and independently verified to be free from forced labour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday, 9 July<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
South African Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hearings will wrap up with comments from the Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America and the National Council of Textile Organisations, joined on the panel by the American Cotton Producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government representatives from South Korea, Sri Lanka and South Africa will also speak on the panel, including a\u00a0representative from Vietnam<\/a>\u00a0who will take issue with the finding that the country \u201chas failed to impose and effectively enforce measures addressing goods associated with forced labour.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, trade officials will hear testimony from a cross-section of the US economy, including the American Trailer Manufacturers Coalition, cookware brand Le Creuset, the Cigar Association of America and medical device companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Creuset noted in a filing with USTR that it employs nearly 800 people in the US, despite not manufacturing its cookware domestically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their enamelled cast iron cookware product \u201cpresents no risk to American manufacturing due to the fact that there is no comparable domestic production of such premium enamelled cast iron cookware to satisfy the demand,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A three-day hearing\u00a0on the US Trade Representative\u2019s latest plan to impose tariffs on major trading partners, including South Africa, kicks off in Washington today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":858280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2074408112207823337","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[10849,3281,25559],"class_list":["post-865620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-tariffs","tag-us-trade-representative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865620","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865623,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865620\/revisions\/865623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}