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The new US tariffs look set to hit South Africa hard, with the automobile industry — the country’s fifth-largest export sector, responsible for around 300,000 jobs — particularly vulnerable.
Washington imposed a 30% levy on goods imported from South Africa as part of “Liberation Day” tariffs, on top of 25% duties on all vehicles and car parts imported into the US, which took effect on Thursday.
The US is, in monetary terms, the second-largest export market for South African cars: Sales of vehicles and auto parts to the US are worth more than $2 billion a year to Pretoria, last year accounting for 64% of South Africa’s exports made under the seemingly doomed AGOA preferential trade program, under which they were imported duty-free into the US.
