On a crisp morning in Citrusdal, trucks brimming with oranges idled under the blazing South African sun, farmers watched helplessly as port authorities halted shipments to the United States. A new 30 percent tariff, one of the highest imposed by the Trump administration, had shut off access to one of South Africa’s largest export markets. For families whose livelihoods depend on agriculture, the shock was immediate, putting an estimated 30,000 jobs at risk.
This battle is more than tariffs and oranges; it is a meticulous game of chess, with influential billionaires and political elites moving pieces on a global board. From Silicon Valley to the Oval Office, private wealth has long shaped public policy to its will, Citrusdal’s stalled exports being the latest example of a familiar pattern of how concentrated power can bend the rules of diplomacy and economics.
Washington has long used economic and even agricultural leverage to shape foreign governments and even disrupt democracies. In the early 20th century, U.S. corporations such as United Fruit, backed by the CIA, manipulated banana exports to influence and oust the democratically elected government of Honduras, a practice that gave rise to the term “banana republic.” Fruit and produce, in this sense, are not just commodities; they are instruments of influence. These tariffs mark not just an economic rupture but the symbolic end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)’s promise, a program once designed to promote partnership and cooperation. However, they serve as a reminder for any country overly reliant on a mercurial superpower: the economic and political consequences arrive swiftly.
For South Africa, the impact extends far beyond its citrus farms. With chronic unemployment already hovering around 32 per cent and youth joblessness exceeding 45 percent, industries from automotive to sugar production face additional potential layoffs. Simultaneously, U.S. aid cuts and suspended development programs compound the blow, resulting in job losses in the health sector and the absence of life-saving aid. In KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and the Western Cape, where communities depend on both direct farm employment and ancillary industries, the effects are likely to ripple through households, reflecting in grocery bills, school fees, and household stability.
The question now looms over Pretoria: can the U.S. be trusted as a partner, or must South Africa chart a course independent of Washington’s whims?
Weaponising Trade, Ideology, and Reputation
The July 2025 tariffs, covering citrus, wine, sugar, soybeans, and vehicles, ended duty-free preferences for South Africa under the AGOA. The Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Lesetja Kganyago, warned that immediate sectoral job losses could reach 35,000, with ripple effects potentially pushing total unemployment increases to over 100,000.
These measures are far from neutral trade policy, but rather serve as coercive instruments. By linking tariffs to politically charged narratives, most notably the framing of white farmers as victims of persecution, the Trump administration conflates economic tools with ideological signaling. Social media amplification, selective reporting, and misinformation have reinforced this narrative, creating reputational pressure alongside financial penalties. Most recently, President Donald Trump has further declined to attend the G20 summit in South Africa, citing what he described as “bad things” the government is doing.
U.S. aid reductions and program suspensions further demonstrate a willingness to weaponize aid and cooperation to achieve political ends. While the aid cuts have been justified publicly as “protecting white farmers,” the tariffs reveal a more complex reality. Claims of white persecution obscure the fact that South Africa’s land reform policies are not racially targeted, but rather measured efforts to rectify historical injustices. The program, designed to redress historical land dispossession and ensure equitable access to land, has been misrepresented and criticized abroad, particularly in U.S. political discourse, as a threat to white farmers. According to the Trump administration, the recent Expropriation Act allows the South African government to seize land from white farmers without compensation. In reality, the Act does not provide for race-based seizures; it is intended to address historical dispossession and applies to all landholders, not just white South Africans. Ironically, the measures implemented by the Trump administration harm the very farmers they claim to protect. Citrus and wine producers, many of whom are white, now face lost export markets, layoffs, and financial instability.
The false narrative of “white persecution” serves as a political pretext, masking its reprisal for South Africa’s principled stance at the ICJ against Israel on Gaza. The tariffs also fit a wider pattern: Washington’s unease with Pretoria’s BRICS role, its ties to Beijing, and its refusal to follow U.S. lines on Russia. Africa once again becomes the terrain of great-power rivalry, with coercion from one side pushing states toward dependency on the other.
Public framing of both aid cuts and tariffs conceals the deeper underlying mechanism: the U.S. is using trade as leverage to influence political behavior. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected claims of “white genocide,” stressing that South Africa’s policies are misrepresented. Yet, the combination of tariffs, misinformation, and aid suspensions demonstrates a broader lesson: taking a moral or principled stand comes at a cost when it conflicts with the interests of great powers, making strategic foresight essential.
Elon Musk: Private Ownership of Public Policy
Adding an additional layer of complexity is Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire. Musk’s Starlink initiative aimed to provide high-speed internet access across South Africa, supporting Pretoria’s goal of bridging the digital divide. However, the venture ran into hurdles due to South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policies, which require foreign companies to cede 30 percent equity to historically disadvantaged groups. Musk criticized these laws, claiming they impeded Starlink’s operations and suggesting that the company was being denied a license due to his race.
South African officials responded that Starlink had not formally applied for a license and emphasized that B-BBEE requirements are designed to address historical inequalities. Musk’s presence at the Oval Office meeting with President Ramaphosa reportedly advanced regulatory concessions for Starlink in South Africa. Despite Musk’s recent falling out with the Trump administration, the South African government has broached exploring amendments to the affirmative action regulations, including equity-equivalent programs, to facilitate foreign investment without undermining empowerment objectives.
The intersection of Musk’s advocacy and U.S. policy illustrates a new reality: the boundaries between enterprise, diplomacy, and political influence are increasingly blurred. Governments must now navigate how private actors, with vast global reach, can instrumentalize the agendas of superpowers alongside their own commercial interests.
Transactional Diplomacy
In June 2025, the U.S. brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. Publicly framed as a diplomatic success, the accord serves U.S. strategic and economic interests, granting Washington greater influence over eastern Congo’s mineral wealth while bolstering Rwandan elites. Civilians in the DRC continue to face violence, displacement, and land dispossession, underscoring the deal’s limited local benefit.
For South Africa, the timing is telling. Pretoria has long played and advocated for a stabilizing role in regional diplomacy and peacekeeping. With the DRC-Rwanda deal secured, the U.S. emerged emboldened, confident in its leverage and unencumbered by immediate constraints. This assertiveness likely informed Washington’s subsequent moves to apply further pressure on South Africa, showing how strategic gains in one context can encourage coercive action in another.
Strategic Diversification, Not Retaliation – South Africa’s Response
In the wake of the July 2025 tariffs, South Africa has taken measured steps to cushion the immediate economic impact while safeguarding long-term sovereignty. Pretoria has engaged pragmatically with U.S. trade officials, seeking to minimize disruption to key export sectors. The South African Reserve Bank and Treasury have warned that the tariffs threaten employment across the agriculture, automotive, and sugar industries, underscoring the urgency of contingency planning. At the same time, efforts to diversify trade are accelerating: exports to emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia are being expanded, while intra-African agreements, including AfCFTA mechanisms and regional mineral pacts, are being leveraged to reduce dependence on a mercantilist superpower.
These responses demonstrate a careful balance between principle and pragmatism, protecting immediate economic interests without sacrificing long-term strategic autonomy.
Global Stakes and Strategic Imperatives
Trump’s transactional and isolationist approach continues to reshape global power dynamics. Vacuums created by the U.S. unreliability allow global powers such as China and Russia to expand influence, while the punishment of principle-driven nations undermines democratic coalitions. This contest is not only about trade flows but principle: can smaller democracies act with moral agency without being punished? If dissent is met with tariffs and misinformation rather than dialogue, the very notion of a plural, rules-based order begins to erode. In this context, African agency and cooperation are essential. Appeals with the World Trade Organization (WTO) may take years, by which time farms and factories could be shuttered. The real defense lies with Pretoria, shifting from mitigation to adaptation, accelerating diversification into regional and emerging markets while using agreements with the EU, AU, and BRICS support as political cover, not a substitute for decisive action.
South Africa’s balancing strategy offers a model for other nations navigating the pressures of mercurial superpowers, as other nations face the consequences of U.S tariffs. As President Ramaphosa has said: “We will not be bullied.” This stance applies not only to the U.S. but to any nation employing coercive diplomacy.
From Coercion to Opportunity – The Strategic Road Ahead
To turn coercion into opportunity, South Africa should pursue a broad, multi-pronged strategy that balances international engagement with domestic resilience. Selective engagement within BRICS should be part of that approach, building on trade and diplomatic opportunities with like-minded democracies such as Brazil, remaining cautious with India’s hedged commitments, and avoiding overreliance on great powers, China and Russia, where partnerships risk turning into new forms of dependency.
Pretoria should also lean more heavily on formal trade frameworks that provide stability and legal protection against sudden shocks. The EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement offers immediate opportunities to safeguard exports, while fast-tracking the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would unlock new intra-African markets and deepen regional integration.
Beyond the continent, South Africa would benefit from expanding exports into the Middle East and Asia, diversifying its trade profile, and reducing exposure to any single power. Equally vital is building resilience at home. Strengthening local value chains, investing in agro-processing and manufacturing, and accelerating the transition toward sustainable energy alternatives would give Pretoria greater independence in weathering future disruptions. Establishing fiscal and social buffers would equally protect workers and communities from the sharp edges of global volatility. Taken together, these steps would allow South Africa not just to withstand external pressure but to chart a more independent and resilient economic path.
The future of U.S.-South Africa Relations
Pragmatic engagement with the U.S. remains necessary to limit short-term damage. Yet the bigger question looms: can a partner that weaponizes aid, spreads misinformation, and levels false accusations be trusted?
Tariffs, aid reductions, and politically charged narratives expose the risks of depending on a superpower that treats cooperation as a bargaining chip. Yet these same pressures create an opening: South Africa can turn short-term vulnerability into long-term sovereignty. Rather than treating the Trump administration’s tariffs as an isolated event, they should be seen as a symptom of deeper structural asymmetry. If South Africa wishes to remain sovereign, guided by international law, and moral independence, then stronger domestic resilience and diversification with credible and principled partners must be prioritized above all. Only then can external pressure be transformed into lasting opportunity and stability.
The citrus farmer in Citrusdal may feel the immediate sting of tariffs, but the lesson runs deeper than a season’s harvest. South Africa’s resilience in the face of pressure signals something larger: that nations of the Global South can resist being bent to the will of great powers, and chart their own course rooted in sovereignty, principle, and unity through cooperation.
If Pretoria succeeds, it will not only protect its democracy at home but also set a precedent abroad- that coercion can be met not with capitulation but with principled resistance and measured action. To answer the question posed at the outset: Can South Africa trust Washington again? The evidence suggests it cannot as a reliable, dependable partner. Washington can be engaged pragmatically, negotiated with when interests align, but not relied upon as a trustworthy ally, charting a new course for U.S.-South Africa relations.
South Africa will engage, negotiate, and cooperate, but it will not bow. In standing firm, it protects its democracy and sets a precedent for the Global South: coercion meets resistance, and sovereignty endures.
Cover photo: Oranges are graded, selected, and packed at the packaging facility of ALG Estates in Citrusdal on July 25, 2025. (Photo by GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP)
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