Trump’s tariffs aren’t about South Africa’s politics—they’re part of a global economic strategy with little logic and plenty of collateral damage.
The local Maga-ites and right-wingers were ecstatic yesterday at the news that US President Donald Trump had imposed an effective 30% tariff on South African exports to the US.
This was proof, they crowed, that South Africa was being punished for the sins of the ANC. Except for one thing: that is totally wrong.
Trump imposed tariffs on most of the planet –including a small island group most people had never heard of, but, oddly enough, excluding Russia and North Korea – and the good or bad behaviour of a government was not a factor.
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In the bizarre formula used by Trump’s clevers, a specific tariff was worked out by taking a country’s trade surplus with the US, dividing it by its total exports and then dividing that by half to arrive at a final tariff figure. Logical it was not.
There were plenty of countries about which Trump has said nothing who have been hit with much higher tariffs than ours.
But, as our white genocide myth perpetrators know only so well because of their proximity to the US right, this is the “Post Truth” era where, as long as you keep repeating a lie and ignoring or attacking those who try to debunk it, then you win.
