Africa prepares to navigate Trump’s trade wars
African leaders have long been aware that President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has the potential to create massive political and economic disruption on the continent. For the best part of a decade, Trump has been in or around the US presidency, openly pledging to wage trade wars on America’s competitors and allies alike and to upend the multilateral world order, creating challenges and potential opportunities for African countries in the process.
However, few would have expected that South Africa’s domestic politics would be in Trump’s line of sight less than two weeks into his presidency.
Trump’s post on his “Truth Social” website condemning South Africa’s land expropriation bill – which allows private land, mostly unused, that is owned mainly by white Afrikaners, to be seized by the government without compensation under carefully defined circumstances – brought an issue which has been bubbling away quietly for several years to the top of the diplomatic agenda.
“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY. It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention. A massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see,” Trump wrote.
“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
While Trump’s condemnation of land expropriation – and his subsequent offer of refugee status for Afrikaners – did not come entirely out of the blue, Pretoria was nonetheless shocked at the speed with which it became a focus for the Trump administration.
Mohamed Cassimjee, a former South African diplomat who now works as a geopolitical consultant in the UK, says that the episode demonstrates a “more ideological” approach to global affairs from a president who has previously been seen as mostly transactional in his approach to foreign policy.
“What I noticed in this reaction to South Africa is that they have now added another, more ideological element… The lines between foreign policy and domestic policy are being blurred.”
The risks of Trump unbound
The ongoing dispute will be watched closely by leaders in capitals across the continent as they seek to draw lessons about what Trump’s disruptive approach to foreign policy and international trade may mean for them over the next four years.
Many were already concerned that Africa could be snared in the global fallout of Trump’s aggressive approach to trade, not least his fondness for tariffs, which he sees as a tool both to further US foreign policy goals and to rectify the country’s trade deficit.
Within weeks of assuming the presidency, Trump had announced sweeping tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico (the latter two initially postponed) and pledged to consider tariffs on the European Union.
Most had expected that African countries would avoid direct tariffs as the US runs only a small trade deficit with the continent and, at least for now, appears more focused on competing with larger powers such as Beijing. In 2024 the US trade deficit with Africa was $7.4bn – compared to an almost $300bn deficit with China in the same year.
Furthermore, in 2023, 85% of the US trade deficit with countries covered by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) came from just three of these – South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana. These countries’ primary exports, notably platinum and crude petroleum, are critical resources for which there is high demand in the US, which would appear to make tariffs self-defeating.
However, Menzi Ndhlovu, political risk analyst at Signal Risk in Cape Town, says that the South Africa dispute shows that tariff policy may be dictated by more than economics.
He thinks that Africa needs to prepare for a more ideological Trump who is not shy in using America’s political and economic pre-eminence to force compliance.
Tariffs on South Africa and other African countries that draw the president’s ire “should not be ruled out, especially if the relationship continues to deteriorate,” he warns – and says the costs could quickly escalate.
“If you impose tariffs on South Africa, you are effectively imposing tariffs on most of Southern Africa. Zimbabwe and Botswana, which are landlocked, and Namibia, which does not have access to sophisticated ports, all tend to trade through South African ports,” he notes. “There would be negative economic repercussions for most of the region.”
More directly, Africa also stands vulnerable to any bid to alter or repeal AGOA, which provides tariff-free access to the US market for African manufacturers from a range of compliant countries. At the very least, Trump could remove countries from the scheme, such as South Africa, which do not align with Washington DC’s foreign policy goals.
Africa risks being caught in the crossfire
Even if these scenarios do not come to pass, Africa more broadly remains exposed to the risks associated with a more disrupted and fragmented international trading landscape. In his first few weeks in office Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports from China. Beijing responded to this with a 15% tariff on US coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and a 10% tariff on American crude oil and agricultural machinery.
At the start of February Trump also imposed a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, with a lower tariff of 10% on Canadian energy imports, but these were postponed for a month after negotiations aimed at ensuring both countries stepped up their efforts to stop illegal drugs entering the US. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico were eventually reimposed on 4 March.
Trump has also put in place a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports globally, effective from March. In 2023, South Africa exported over $400m worth of iron and steel to the US and almost $600m worth of aluminium. Mozambique, Egypt and Nigeria also all export aluminium to the US to varying degrees, raising concerns about what these trade restrictions will mean for their domestic producers.
And even assuming there are no direct tariffs on African countries – although that is possible – Africa still stands at high risk of being caught in the crossfire. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global “geoeconomic fragmentation” resulting from trade barriers could wipe off 4% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP – double the losses faced by the rest of the world.
“In a scenario in which the world splits into two trading blocs around the European Union and the United States versus China, sub-Saharan Africa would lose access to key export markets and experience higher import prices,” the IMF writes. “The median sub-Saharan African country would face a permanent decline of 4% of real GDP after 10 years relative to a no-fragmentation baseline.”
Cassimjee says “Africa needs the world to be open” and that economic fragmentation would be “very negative for Africa.
“Just as Asia grew by being able to export, Africa needs a free trade environment without too many tariffs and trade restrictions. That is absolutely vital for development.”
Analysts have raised fears that Trump’s pledge to wage trade war on Beijing could reduce growth within China. The investment bank Goldman Sachs has forecast that the tariffs will have an immediate impact by subtracting almost 0.7% from China’s growth in 2025. More substantial decreases are not ruled out should Trump increase tariffs further or bring in more measures such as ending the US designation of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China, which dates back to 2000.
Weaker growth in China could be particularly felt by African countries such as Zambia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which rely on Chinese demand for copper, oil and cobalt. A weaker Chinese economy would likely dampen demand for these commodities, potentially leading to lower prices on global markets and revenue losses for African exporters.
Copper – of which Africa is a leading producer, having produced 3.6m metric tonnes of the commodity in 2023 – is particularly sensitive to trade wars as a crucial industrial metal used across industries. Unsurprisingly, the commodity has experienced considerable price volatility since November’s election. ING Bank has noted that “tariffs are bearish for copper and other industrial metals in the context of slowing global growth and keeping inflation higher for longer.”
