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South Africa’s trade negotiations with the US have hit “sticking points” as Washington applies pressure over what it has deemed unjust Black empowerment and land expropriation policies, the foreign minister has said.
Negotiators from Africa’s most industrialised economy have been meeting US trade officials in recent weeks to try to secure a reduction in the 30 per cent tariff imposed by President Donald Trump in August, the highest rate on any sub-Saharan African country.
Speaking at the Financial Times Africa Summit in London, Ronald Lamola said the US had sought to introduce “domestic” and sovereign issues into trade talks.
This included concessions over South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment policy, an affirmative action programme designed to close the wealth gap in one of the world’s most unequal societies, and a new law allowing the government to expropriate land without compensation where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest”.
The White House has previously described these policies as examples of “unjust racial discrimination”, while Trump has promoted a discredited theory that South Africa is allowing a “genocide” of white people.
“There are indeed sticking points that you are aware of, which we view as falling within the domestic issues and sovereignty of South Africa: the issues of BEE, the issues of land reform [and] the false narrative of genocide, [which] the world knows is not a correct narrative,” Lamola told the summit.
Lamola said South Africa wanted domestic legislation and trade talks to be treated as separate issues, something he said Washington was resisting.
South Africa’s parliament, constitution and courts protect citizens against the sort of persecution Trump alleges has happened against white Afrikaners, he added.
“Even some of the Afrikaner farmer organisations support this approach by the South African government,” he said, referring to land expropriation. “There are enough avenues through which they can ventilate, even when they disagree with some of the policies.”
A US State Department spokesperson said in a statement that the agency would collaborate with South African officials “on issues where our interests align” and that it would “oppose policies that harm U.S. interests”.
“The Administration remains focused on efforts to reduce trade barriers and give American companies fair access,” the person said.
But Lamola held out the prospect for a breakthrough in discussions and even the potential reinstatement of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, under which South Africa and other countries on the continent were able to export tariff-free to the US. The agreement expired this month.
He said there were nonetheless “positive vibes” coming out of Washington about both tariffs and the Agoa regime, which he said could be renewed by Congress by the end of the year.
Lamola said there could be a boost to relations with the appointment of a new ambassador “very soon”, after South Africa’s previous ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled in March.
But he conceded that South Africa may have to adjust its ambitions for the G20, which it is chairing this year in a first for an African nation.
Trump has said he will not attend the upcoming summit, though vice-president JD Vance is expected to be there. But Lamola said South Africa’s agenda — which included equality, sustainability and cheaper finance — was gaining traction.
Though Lamola defended BEE, which he said was necessary to redress “centuries” of exploitation of South Africa’s Black majority, the policy has come under pressure at home from the ruling African National Congress’s coalition partner, the Democratic Alliance.
The DA this week proposed legislation to replace Black empowerment with a “system that targets poverty as the proxy for disadvantage instead of race”.
The DA has called the Black empowerment policy a “patronage machine” that has “turned ANC insiders into billionaires” while millions have been reduced to poverty and unemployment.
Lamola said that, while BEE had weaknesses, it remained government policy and had contributed towards building a more equitable society.
“We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said. “With the history of South Africa, you do need the inclusion of the Black majority in the economy.”
Additional reporting by Abigail Hauslohner in Washington
