Photos: YouTube\Wikimedia Commons
Africa’s biggest economies adopted contrasting strategies in responding to US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
Washington last week imposed levies of between 10% and 50% on sub-Saharan African countries: Nigeria’s central bank responded quickly by selling nearly $200 million to prop up the naira, with policymakers arguing that a drop in crude oil prices alongside Washington’s huge new duties presented “new dynamics for oil-exporting countries.”
Pretoria, by contrast, held off on immediate action. President Cyril Ramaphosa said his government was considering the implications of the tariffs but would not “act out of spite.” South Africa, a member of the BRICS bloc, said it would “forge global alliances” to diversify its export destinations while Trade Minister Parks Tau told the Financial Times that African nations should pivot towards other markets, including China.
Others on the continent — Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mauritius, are the “most vulnerable,” according to the Washington-based think tank Center for Global Development — have fewer options. “Our best hope is that Africa experts in US agencies can persuade the architects of this scheme to remedy this inexplicably cruel situation,” two CGD authors wrote.
