After the Bell: Thanks for the letter, Donald. We’ll think about it

When I finally knocked off last night, I did think that there would be more news to come. Sometimes you do indeed have a spidey sense, sometimes it’s just rational to expect more from the day.

And so it proved. It was obvious that when President Donald Trump said he was going to send letters to several countries telling them what their new tariffs would be, we would be included in the list.

But earlier in the day, during the US breakfast TV cycle, his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, had said the letters would spell out that there would still be room for negotiation.

To put it another way, Trump might still, as so often before, chicken out.

And while he didn’t really chicken out with our letter, in essence we are back to where we were before. No one knows what is going to happen, and Trump is trying to put as much pressure as possible on South Africa.

Strangely, the letter to each of the countries that received one last night was the same. The only difference was the total tariff.

Now, considering all of the heat that Trump and his allies have been putting on us, and how Elon Musk has been claiming he’s the victim of discrimination (the richest man in the world … shame), you might think that we would be singled out for special treatment.

But we weren’t.

Instead, the entire letter is about trade, and Trump’s idea that the US is somehow suffering because its companies are trading with our companies.

And this is something that is completely missed in much of the debate. South Africa doesn’t trade with the US; American companies trade with South African ones.

They do that because there is some benefit to it for both parties.

Even the total 30% tariff shows that, for all of the screaming about “white genocide”, we are no different to places such as Japan or Indonesia.

Modern Japan was almost wholly formed as a result of the way it was treated by the US after 1945. It is now an indispensable ally against China, and a Nato partner.

And more than that, its chief negotiator actually put on a Maga cap during his talks with Trump, causing a small political storm in Japan.

Despite all of that, despite the literal kowtowing to the US, and Trump personally, Japan was slapped with a tariff of 25%. 

Indonesia got 32%; Bangladesh and Serbia 35%. 

And no, I can’t imagine two more different societies and economies than Serbia and Bangladesh.

One has a population of about 171 million; the other under 7 million.

Suddenly, our 30% looks like it is all about trade and not about politics.

And that, in fact, all of Trump’s antics around the Expropriation Act and everything else is not connected to our trading relationship.

So, while we may now have to deal with the fallout after all of this, I do wonder if perhaps we have some strengths to play with.

First, our economy, unlike some others, does not depend on the US. Sure, it’s bad for some people to be locked out of the US – our winemakers and farmers will suffer big time.

But we’re not Canada or Mexico. They literally need the US.

And we have some levers of our own.

While Gwede Mantashe will be the first to tell you he and I disagree on many things, I thought people were wrong to laugh at him so quickly when he first said Africa should consider refusing to export its minerals to the US.

Probably our biggest lever of the moment is platinum (prices have jumped dramatically in the past two months, mainly because of a scarcity of supply).

If Trump doesn’t get his platinum from us, he can go either to Russia (while sending more arms to Ukraine … good luck with that) or Canada (which is pretty keen on some levers of its own at the moment) or Zimbabwe.

In other words, US companies might suddenly find that they have very few places to get their supplies if we refuse to sell the stuff to the US.

Now, it might seem impossible to ban the export of platinum, and probably is. But it would be pretty easy to put a nice big export tax on it. 

Certainly, you could make the Americans pay for it.

But actually all of that could just be performative. We won’t need to go that far.

What Trump really wants is to look like the boss, to make you wear a Maga cap and still kick you in the shins.

He won’t do that if you show that you can hit back.

The fact all of these new tariffs are now suspended (again) until the end of the month shows there is a lot more talking and crying, and perhaps kicking, to come.

And it won’t end there. This tariff argument is going to keep going. 

There is going to be a lot more news after the bell. DM