The view from St Mary’s Church of the Port of Port Elizabeth. Churches in the Eastern Cape have sent an urgent distress call to President Cyril Ramaphosa over the pending US tariffs. (Photo: Deon Ferreira) 
Warning of a dire and imminent socioeconomic crisis in the face of looming 30% tariffs and an unprecedented unemployment emergency, churches in the Eastern Cape on Thursday sent an urgent call to President Cyril Ramaphosa for help.
Not long after sending their heartfelt plea the church leaders worst fears were realised when the Trump administration confirmed that the 30% tariffs would come into effect from 7 August.
In the letter the church leaders said that churches were already making a huge contribution towards the care of the hungry and impoverished. "The load is overwhelming. This is an emergency for us,” read the letter, signed by 28 prominent clerics in the province.
Read more: More than two dozen children have starved to death in Nelson Mandela Bay in the past year
“We pray that you and your ministers will urgently find a solution to this impasse to protect the people of our province,” the letter continues.
“We are church leaders resident in the Eastern province of South Africa. We represent churches and denominations that are based in and have a substantial presence in the Eastern Cape. We address this letter to you out of our concern at the potential devastation that the imposition of tariffs (expected to be around 30%) will have on our province’s economy.
“As you know, the Eastern Cape is the poorest province in our country. It is well known that our country has the highest unemployment rate in the world. Nelson Mandela Bay’s unemployment rate is likely the highest of any city in the world, so we cannot afford to lose any more jobs. To make matters worse, in dollar terms, the GDP per capita in our province is lower than what it was in 2007.
“We are poorer than we were 18 years ago. Our province also has the most malnourished or undernourished people,” the letter continued.
“The impact of the tariffs on our province will be severe,” the church leaders wrote, adding that should the Mercedes-Benz plant close because of the new US tariffs, it would “decimate East London as well as Nelson Mandela Bay, as many companies supply and depend upon this factory.”
This is aside from the impact on the other motor vehicle factories and supply chains.
This is the second time this year that church leaders in the metro have sent an urgent letter to Ramaphosa. In May, they urged Ramaphosa to attend to the state of local government in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Read more: Church leaders urge radical change in Nelson Mandela Bay’s governance ahead of local elections
Labour union Numsa, in its letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ministers in the government’s economic cluster, said that 26 companies in the Eastern Cape were at high risk of closing should Mercedes-Benz pull out of the country.
The letter, signed by union secretary-general Irvin Jim, urges immediate steps to be taken as “the hard lessons, both in South Africa and in the world, are such that in manufacturing, if you allow a company to close, such jobs will never come back”.
Read more: Eastern Cape on its knees, Numsa warns government of jobs ‘catastrophe’
Also under pressure is the tyre sector – Goodyear will close its Kariega factory by the end of 2025, threatening up to 3,000 direct and indirect jobs, a move Numsa links to cheap imports flooding the market. The union has called for stronger anti-dumping measures.
In response, director of communications for the Nelson Mandela Bay metro Sithembiso Soyaya said the metro had “financial and economic resilience measures in place as part of its Integrated Development Plan and Medium-Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework”.
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“These measures are designed to manage potential revenue losses, including those that may arise from changes in the manufacturing sector,” Soyaya said.
The bulk of the metro’s income is derived from industry and particularly from the manufacturing industry.
Soyaya said the measures would also include diversifying revenue sources, implementing cost containment and risk management practices, driving investment attraction and business retention initiatives, and collaborating with provincial and national governments on industrial revitalisation programmes.
“While we cannot pre-empt individual business decisions, our focus remains on ensuring service delivery stability and protecting the economic wellbeing of our communities,” Soyaya said.
On Wednesday, 30 July, Kaamil Allie, spokesperson for the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Parks Tau, said that the government had “planned for these scenarios and has not sat idle”.
“We are working with other government departments on a response plan, which includes a support desk within the DTIC (Department of Trade, Industry and Competition). Our response package also focuses on demand-side interventions in the impacted industries,” the statement read. DM