The trade, industry & competition ministry’s spin on SA’s attempt to negotiate with the US on tariffs is nonsense. (“SA scrambles to beat US tariffs deadline”, July 29).
SA is speaking to no-one in Washington. It is a smokescreen to hoodwink SA’s gullible mainstream media into believing our government is doing something. The US has already told SA what it needs to do. Ask Corné Mulder, Theo de Jager or Gerhard Papenfus.
The key features of SA’s fake (apparently “secret”) counterproposals are laughable. SA spending $12bn on US gas — over 10 years! — is pathetic. The US economy imports about $12bn of goods daily.
In the same breath that SA envoy Mcebisi Jonas says SA should abandon ideological posturing, international relations & co-operation director-general Zane Dangor and Co are leading Hague Group resolutions on sanctioning Israel for “apartheid crimes”. The lack of co-ordinated messaging and basic narrative incompetence is astounding.
Isn’t it funny that a country with about 140 race-based laws is accusing Israel of apartheid, while demanding separate bantustans for Palestinians even as SA denies Afrikaners the same at home.
What a joke. Them sanctions are a-coming, SA. But they won’t be on Israel.
Stuart Meyer
Via BusinessLIVE
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