Trade Minister’s warning to South Africa

African nations and the US will hold talks in June or July on a trade pact that provides duty-free access to the world’s largest economy, South African Trade Minister Parks Tau said, adding it will be hard to salvage the arrangement that tariffs superseded last week. 

“It is going to be difficult” to save the African Growth and Opportunity Act, Tau said on Radio 702 Thursday.

AGOA is due to expire in September, and the continent’s trade ministers are meeting the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, where they will discuss a collective way forward, he said.  

President Donald Trump’s April 2 tariffs on most countries take precedence over the concessions offered by the 25-year-old pact that benefitted many of the poorest African nations. 

Tau said South African officials are also holding talks with other countries to find alternative markets.