President Donald Trump’s decision to slap 30% tariffs on vehicles, components, tyres and parts exported from SA to the US will “kill any possible economic growth in our country”, economist Dawie Roodt warned on Tuesday.
Trump said the new tariffs, set to take effect on August 1, were necessary because SA exported more to the US than it imported, a claim local experts reject.
“Trump’s figures are not based on actual figures, but everyone will feel the impact because it will hinder any economic growth,” Dawie Roodt, founder and chief economist of the Efficient Group, told the Motor Industry Staff Association (Misa).
Misa is a registered trade union with more than 72,000 members in the motor retail industry.
“These tariffs take away any competitive edge SA had in competing with the global market,” he said.
He said small firms had already stopped manufacturing because it was not feasible to continue with the new export tariffs, or due to reduced demand from US clients.
“We can now accept that Agoa [the African Growth and Opportunity Act] is dead. Under Agoa, more than 1,800 SA products and goods, including vehicles, components and parts, were exported to the US duty-free,” Roodt said.
The blow comes just as unemployment in SA edged up to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025, the highest since the second quarter of 2024.
“The population has seen a steady increase year on year, with a growth rate of 1.33%. We live in a country where our population growth exceeds our economic growth. This makes job creation highly unlikely,” Roodt said.
Misa CEO Martlé Keyter said: “The retail motor industry, in which Misa is the majority trade union, is already struggling amid the uncertainty of tariff increases, which started when Trump came into office earlier this year.
“The union is experiencing an increase in employers closing their doors, restructuring in terms of section 189 of the Labour Relations Act, or embarking on short time.”
Tiekie Mocke, manager of Misa’s legal department, said: “The negative impact on exports forced an employer within the retail motor industry to cut a five-day work week to four days, effectively leaving employees out of pocket by at least one week’s income per month.
“This was done proactively to prevent retrenchments but cannot continue indefinitely,” she added.
Keyter urged the government to act decisively.
“This is not about who is right or wrong, but about what is in the best interest of SA.”
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