SA and Canada should ‘boost resilience’ while diversifying beyond US

South Africa and Canada should use their position as middle powers to build stronger economic and diplomatic coalitions as the US increasingly uses its market power to extract concessions from trading partners.

Addressing a seminar on South Africa/Canada relations, MTN chair Mcebisi Jonas and Canadian high commissioner James Christoff said more dialogue and co-operation were needed in the face of global geopolitical shifts.

US President Donald Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on $27.6bn of Canadian goods, prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to announce matching duties from September.

South Africa has faced a 30% US tariff on its exports since August 2025, forcing Pretoria to accelerate efforts to diversify markets and reduce its exposure to a trading relationship dominated by a single major economy.

The pressure is reinforcing a broader reassessment among countries that lack the economic or military weight of the US and China but have enough resources, markets and diplomatic influence to shape other international outcomes.

For Canada, that argument has become central to Carney’s foreign policy. In a January address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the prime minister said middle powers should act collectively rather than compete for the favour of larger powers.

He argued that the global system had undergone a rupture and that countries such as Canada needed to build greater strategic autonomy.

That vision is increasingly relevant to South Africa, which has sought to maintain relations with the US, China, Europe, Russia, India, the Gulf countries and other African countries while resisting pressure to align permanently with any geopolitical bloc.

Jonas, a former deputy minister of finance, said South Africa’s objective should not be to replace one dominant partner with another but to build relationships that expand its room for manoeuvre and strengthen its ability to pursue economic development.

“The task is not to choose our one partner to replace the other…. It is to build relationships that increase our room to manoeuvre and strengthen our developmental capabilities,” he said during the Nucleus Institute seminar on Thursday.

He argued that the country’s middle power strategy would ultimately stand or fall on its domestic economic capacity.

A capable state, reliable infrastructure, energy security, stronger institutions and the ability to negotiate and implement trade agreements were prerequisites for diplomatic influence, he said.

Jonas also argued that South Africa should stop treating its role on the continent as one of speaking on behalf of Africa. Its leverage would be greater when it worked with other countries to aggregate economic power, particularly in critical minerals, infrastructure, energy and trade.

“South Africa is important in Africa, but it is not Africa,” he said, warning that domestic failures and violence against African immigrants undermine the country’s credibility abroad.

Christoff told the seminar that Canada was pursuing a similar strategy of strengthening economic resilience while diversifying beyond the US. Canada wants to double non-US exports over the next decade and is investing in critical minerals, advanced technology, nuclear power, infrastructure and defence.

That creates a potential area of convergence with South Africa. The two countries are major mining economies and are seeking to strengthen their positions in critical mineral supply chains as governments seek to reduce dependence on concentrated sources of strategic commodities.

The high commissioner pointed to a nuclear co-operation agreement between Canada and South Africa, exploratory talks on a foreign investment protection agreement and the opening of a FinDev Canada office in Cape Town as evidence of a relationship that is moving beyond traditional diplomacy.

The partnership could also extend into the Southern African Development Community, particularly in infrastructure, energy, agriculture and regional value chains.

Former president Kgalema Motlanthe framed the shift in more fundamental terms, saying the world was moving through a transition between rising and declining powers with countries competing for markets and raw materials.

“When we look at geopolitics, we should do so within the framework of the rise and fall of empires and the transition periods, and that’s where we are now,” he said.

“We will get lots of kings from a falling empire and lots of throttles and vessels from the rising empire because all of them are defined by a search for new markets and new sources of raw materials to boost their own economies all the time.”

Business Day