Africa-Press – South-Africa. South African Trade Minister Parks Tau said a trade deal with the US was very close, without providing details.
“We are on the verge of negotiating an agreement around tariffs, and how they can be reciprocally beneficial,” he told an event at a resort in the Drakensberg mountains on Saturday evening.
President Donald Trump slapped 30% levies on South African exports into the US in August and Pretoria has been trying to get them lowered ever since. The tariffs threaten thousands of South African jobs in automobile manufacture and citrus farming.
Tau, who met with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington DC last month, said there had been significant progress in the talks. USTR officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has falsely claimed that South Africa’s government is subjecting White Afrikaans farmers to genocide and has offered members of that community refugee status.
The US leader has also criticized South Africa’s Black economic empowerment laws aimed at redressing the impact apartheid-era discrimination.
Tau said that the two parties were dealing with “five hot-button issues”, including the Black empowerment laws, which he said the government would not abandon, and the “so-called genocide of Afrikaners”.
“It’s tough discussions, sometimes uncomfortable, and we continue to engage with them and build trust,” the minister said.
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