US President Donald Trump’s executive order to halt aid to SA has raised fears that duty-free access to the US market will be next on the chopping block.
Business Unity SA (Busa), SA’s umbrella organisation for organised business, said on Sunday that it was “very worried” about SA’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa), which gives 30 African nations preferential access to US markets.
About a quarter of SA’s total exports to the US fall under Agoa, under which it exported products worth $3.6bn to the US in 2023. The act is up for renewal in September.
“The signs are not good. Judging by this executive order, the chances of us retaining our participation do not look promising,” Busa CEO Khulekani Mathe said.
“Hopefully the diplomatic work that’s being done, including the president saying he’ll be sending a delegation to various capitals to explain our position, does the trick. But for now, watching the tweets, it is looking quite bad,” he said.
On Friday Trump signed an executive order stopping foreign assistance to SA, citing its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and its land policy, set out in the recently signed Expropriation Act.
Trump characterised the Expropriation Act as legislation that would allow the government “to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”, and said the US government would not support SA as long as the government continued to violate rights and undermine US foreign policy. It also offered Afrikaners who were victims “of unjust racial discrimination” resettlement in the US as refugees.
President Cyril Ramaphosa stood firmly by SA’s foreign policy agenda when he delivered his state of the nation address on Thursday, saying the government would not be bullied and reiterating its support for Palestinians. A high-level delegation was to travel to various capitals to explain SA’s position, he said at the time.
The US allocated almost $440m in aid to SA in 2023, the latest year for which US government figures are available, of which the lion’s share ($364m) went to health.
The order appears to override a waiver previously given to aspects of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) by Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio. The waiver followed Trump’s January 20 freeze on foreign aid for 90 days pending a review to assess whether it aligned with his America First agenda.
Pharmaceutical Task Group chairperson Stavros Nicolaou said the disruption to nongovernmental organisations supported by Pepfar not only posed a risk to SA’s HIV/Aids programmes, but potentially exposed SA to a surge in patients from neighbouring countries.
Unlike most other African countries, SA does not depend on Pepfar to provide antiretroviral treatment for HIV patients. An end to Pepfar funding for SA would nevertheless be significant, as it covers the salaries of more than 15,000 people working in the national health department and public health facilities.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said the party disagreed with many ANC policies, but the way to fix them was through reforms and new policies, not measures that hurt the vulnerable and damaged the economy.
“To safeguard strong and cordial relations with the US, the DA will be sending a high-level delegation to Washington DC in coming weeks to engage with decisionmakers and demonstrate the role we are playing to change the policy direction of our government and to defend our country’s national interests,” Steenhuisen said.
The DA had already challenged the Expropriation Act by invoking clause 19.3 of the statement of intent, and would be pursuing legal action to safeguard property rights, he said.
“The DA remains committed to protecting private property rights, fostering economic growth and strengthening diplomatic ties with the US.”
The ANC released a statement on Sunday condemning Trump’s executive order, saying it was a direct assault on SA’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It blamed AfriForum for provoking Trump’s moves against SA, saying the organisation’s actions were at the centre of an international campaign to deliberately spread lies and misinformation about SA.
AfriForum lobbied Trump’s previous administration in 2018 about land expropriation and farm murders.
In turn, AfriForum said Trump’s action was a direct result of Ramaphosa’s “irresponsible actions and policies”. It declined Trump’s offer to allow Afrikaners to emigrate to the US, saying they could only survive as a community on local soil.
The Solidarity Movement, which includes AfriForum and represents about 2-million Afrikaners, said it had neither accused the government of large-scale race-based land grabs nor distributed false information, and appealed to the US to keep SA in Agoa.
It intended to lead a delegation to the White House “to put the situation in SA into context”, the movement said.
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