How South Africa missed the warning signs

The South African government had failed to see the warnings that US tariffs were coming, and is now paying the price, according to FairPlay founder Francois Baird.“With a bit of strategic planning, much of this tariff panic could have been avoided,” Baird told the radio station Cape Talk.


The proposed tariff policy was published three years ago by the America First Institute, a think tank where future Trump administration officials gathered before the last US election, Baird said.

“I’m afraid the South African embassy in Washington DC must not have been paying attention.”

Some smaller African countries had understood that the reciprocal tariffs were the way the US was “making trade a part of its geopolitical statecraft” and that “it’s no longer simply an economic issue”.

Regardless of whether the Trump administration was strengthened or weakened in next year’s mid-term elections – half-way through the administration’s four-year term – the US stance towards South Africa would not change.

“They will not change the way they see South Africa as on a different trajectory than it used to be in its relations with the US,” Baird said.

South Africa had to take a decision about its relations with America.

“Does the South African government regard the US as an important ally? Does it regard the US market as an important market?

“And does it want to have a good relationship with the biggest and wealthiest market and the leading democracy in the world?”

If South Africa was truly non-aligned, it would not have such close relationships with Russia and China as it had at the moment, at the expense of close relationships with Europe and the US.

Asked about the “Global South” and the BRICS group of countries, of which South Africa is part, Baird said the Global South was led in large part by China, and the money for the BRICS Bank came from Russia and China.

“The Global South is regarded in Europe and the United States as acting against the interests of those western democracies. That’s the reality,” Baird stated.