South Africa’s preferential trade access to United States markets came into question again this week when President Donald Trump criticised South Africa and temporarily blocked all US funding to the country.
The trade benefits under the US AGOA legislation were not mentioned, but supporters of an extension when AGOA comes up for renewal later this year will have noted the tone of President Trump’s comments.
The comments came in reaction to South Africa’s new law on expropriation without compensation and, while several observers have pointed out that the accusations against South Africa were not factually accurate, they may indicate President Trump’s future approach to South African issues.
South Africa is “confiscating land” in a “massive human rights violation,” President Trump said on his Truth Social app.
He announced that he would be “cutting off all further funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed”.
Asked on Fox News whether he was planning to cut aid to different African nations, President Trump responded: “No. It’s only South Africa, terrible things are happening in South Africa, the leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things … so that’s under investigation right now, we’re making determinations and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing.”
Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa, issued a quick response.
“The South African government has not confiscated any land,” he said.
“South Africa, like the United States of America and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners,” Magwenya stated.
South Africa looked forward to engaging the Trump administration over the land reform policy and “matters of bilateral interest”. When those talks take place, AGOA is likely to be high on South Africa’s list.
AGOA: high stakes and hard talks ahead
The future of the AGOA legislation came up directly in a subsequent interview by News24 with a potential Trump administration ambassador to South Africa.
“Trump is going to play hardball,” said Joel Pollak, the South African-born editor of Breitbart News. News24 said Pollak was an influential figure in President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and a likely US ambassador to Pretoria.
Asked whether President Trump might change the AGOA legislation when it comes up for renewal, or even do away with it, Pollak had a firm answer:
“I think he’s going to want to scrap it or revise it radically if it’s going to be renewed at all. And there’s also a question of South Africa’s participation,” he said, due to its status as a middle-income country.
In the past, despite dissatisfaction with SA in the US political establishment, the US has opted to renew SA’s membership of AGOA because the benefits are broadly shared by a number of constituencies that the US does not want to harm.
“There will still be a desire not to hurt small business owners and the farming sector, which will be a factor at some stage. But, Trump’s initial moves are going to be very confrontational.
“If I were the SA government, I would definitely be on notice that this is not going to be something that can be smoothed over, and there’s going to have to be some fairly dramatic changes in foreign and domestic policy.”
Pollak said concerns in the US Congress about South Africa were “deeper and broader” now than last year.
“A general and widely held sentiment is that SA is not co-operating with the US on the international stage. Even Democrats have been asking why SA is included in AGOA if it constantly helps Russia at a time when Russia is disrupting the international order with the war in Ukraine and by, essentially, offering aid and comfort to Hamas. That is universal and not just on the Right.”
