US President Donald Trump has posted a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Truth Social informing him that South Africa will be charged a tariff of 30 percent from the 1st of August on all products sent into the United States if a new trade deal is not reached by that date.
The US trade deficit with South Africa last year stood at 8.8 billion dollars.
South Africa was among a number of countries to be issued a tariff letter from President Trump on Monday including Japan, South Korea and Malaysia among others.
Trump said that the letter demonstrated the strength and commitment of the trading relationship despite having a significant trade deficit with South Africa.
Trump said the relationship had been far from reciprocal and that starting August 1st, a 30 tariff would be placed on all South Africa products, separate from all sectoral tariffs. Trump argued that the 30 tariff was far less than what was needed to eliminate the trade deficit between the two countries.
