Striking a deal with the United States

South Africa’s finance chief said the government made progress on resetting its relationship with the US and securing a trade deal in talks after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s showdown with Donald Trump at the White House.

Ramaphosa’s delegation—including his trade, agriculture, and foreign ministers and local business executives—met with officials from the Trump administration for about two hours to discuss trade and investment opportunities in South Africa.

The closed-door discussions followed a televised encounter with Trump in the Oval Office, in which the US leader repeated the false claim that there is a genocide against White Afrikaners.

“My reading of what has happened behind the scenes is that it was a positive meeting, and therefore in that context, I think there was a reset of the relationship,” Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in an interview in Cape Town on Thursday.

“Even if it’s not a final deal, there has been some progress, and over time, we are likely to see the conclusion of a deal.”

The US is South Africa’s second-biggest trading partner — an economic relationship that’s been jeopardised by a deterioration in political relations following American criticism of Pretoria’s foreign policies, including going to the International Court of Justice to accuse key US ally Israel of genocide in Gaza.

Trump has also falsely claimed that South Africa is unlawfully seizing land from South Africa’s White minority. The authorities haven’t confiscated any private land since apartheid ended in 1994.

Trade, Industry & Competition Minister Parks Tau said in an interview in Washington that among the proposals put to the US administration was a request that the US maintain a reciprocal duty at 10% while the country negotiates for less stringent levies than the 30% imposed by Trump in April and then suspended until July.

“We are ready to negotiate on the offer submitted, and while we are negotiating, we are proposing that the US maintains the reciprocal duty at no more than 10%,” he said.

Godongwana cited the potential impact of higher US tariffs as a key reason for the National Treasury’s downgrade on Wednesday of its economic growth forecast for this year. In addition to the 30% import tax, Trump also implemented a 25% tariff on vehicles produced outside the US, threatening manufacturers in South Africa, including Ford Motor Co.

Tau said other proposals included a duty–free quota of 40,000 vehicles per annum for the auto industry, exemptions on automotive components sourced from South Africa for production in the US, and a duty-free quota of 385 million kilograms of steel and 132 million kilograms of aluminium per annum.

South Africa also discussed ramping up its liquefied natural gas imports from the US and American investment in gas infrastructure and fracking technologies in the country. Tau said there was a call for the establishment of a joint fund for exploration without providing further details.

While the relationship between the South African and US leaders appears to be mending, more work needs to be done with legislators, Godongwana said.

Last month, two US lawmakers introduced a bill calling for a review of Pretoria’s ties with Washington, alleging that it supports America’s adversaries.

“The challenges, I’ve indicated, will be at Capitol Hill with both Congress and the Senate,” Godongwana said. “We still need to do some work there to complete the picture of that resetting of the relationship.”