While South African cars, fruits and wines are being walloped with high tariffs in the United States, the same products are wrongly subject to millions in tariffs in the United Kingdom, despite a duty-free agreement.
British and South African officials don’t know why this is happening, Business Day reported, but they’re working to fix it.
Details were given at a seminar co-hosted by South Africa’s trade and industry department and the British high commission in South Africa.
“The high commission showed that in 2024 alone, £114m (about R2.7bn) in vehicle exports to the UK paid the standard UK global tariff of 10% rather than the 0% duty guaranteed under the SACU member states and Mozambique (SACUM) and UK economic partnership agreement, SA’s post-Brexit trade deal with the UK,” the newspaper reported.
“A further £40m in white wine exports missed out on preferential access, as well as £18m in fruits and nuts, including £3m in avocados — a product that qualifies for duty-free access but still paid a 4% UK tariff.
“While the UK is not certain why this is happening, officials there and at SA’s trade department said they were working to fix the problem.”
The US’s 30% tariff wall has walloped South Africa, launching ministers into action to seek new markets and prompting warnings that the steep levy will lead to job losses. The full use of economic partnership agreement with the UK could recoup hundreds of millions in lost savings, potentially helping to blunt the US sting.
The UK is SA’s second-largest agricultural export partner and fourth-largest source of imports, Business Day said.
The SACUM-UK economic partnership agreement is a duty-free and quota-free arrangement that allows most SA goods to enter the British market without tariffs provided they meet certain requirements, such as “rules of origin”. These rules ensure that products are either made in SA or include a high enough proportion of inputs sourced from the SACUM region (which includes SA, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Mozambique).
