SA dangles blueberries and pork in a bid to avert the US tariff blow.
South Africa has offered easier market access for American blueberries, poultry and pork in a revised trade offer to the US Trade Representative on Tuesday, 12 August. In a fortnight, container-loads of the exports will hit the waters from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Alabama from three American ports.
This is the cornerstone of a multi-pronged revised offer that SA hopes will stave off punitive tariffs of 30% that are steadily being implemented, and which have already cost jobs and contracts.
Will it be enough to see off the trade war from truculent US President Donald Trump? It’s unlikely, although a sharpened talks team will go to the US to walk through the revised offer.
Trade Minister Parks Tau and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, along with new trade attachés and negotiating teams, will jet off to Asia and the Middle East to bolster new markets primarily for SA’s fruit exports and motor cars – the casualties of the sky-high US tariffs.
South Africa is now exporting apples to Thailand after a 16-year hiatus, an example of what new trade routes may look like. Steenhuisen said…
