Department of Trade, Industry and Competition says 30,000 jobs at risk from Trump tariffs

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on South Africa could put about 30,000 jobs at risk, officials from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) said on Monday, 4 August 2025.  

“We’ve based this on the ongoing consultations that we have with all the sectors of the economy — from automotive, agriculture and all the other sectors that are going to be impacted — and at this stage we are sitting at approximately 30,000 jobs that could be affected by this, if it were to be mismanaged in any manner,” department director-general Simphiwe Hamilton told reporters. 

Hamilton, along with DTIC Minister Parks Tau, Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) Minister Ronald Lamola and Dirco director-general Zane Dangor briefed the media on SA’s response to the US tariffs in Johannesburg.

Last Thursday, Trump signed an executive order placing new tariff rates on dozens of countries, hours before the 1 August deadline he had set for deals to be made. Some countries received modified tariff rates, while South Africa’s remained at the 30% previously proposed by the US. 

The tariffs are expected to come into effect on 7 August.

In response, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Friday, 1 August, that Pretoria was preparing a package to support companies that were vulnerable to the US tariffs, which included the formation of an Export Support Desk to support South African exporters, set up by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition last week. 

On Monday, Tau said his department would be sharing “a set of more detailed proposals” on SA’s tariff response package with the Cabinet on Wednesday that “would elaborate on the structure of the support package”. 

Read more: Ramaphosa announces urgent measures to shield South African firms from Trump’s tariff fallout

The US is South Africa’s third-largest trading partner (7.5% of total exports), with China being its second-largest trading partner (11%) and the EU its largest, with 17%. 

Daily Maverick reported previously that Trump’s 30% tariffs would be a devastating blow to South Africa’s automotive sector and citrus industry. 

While the risk to the South African automotive and agricultural industry is valid, it’s not all doom and gloom. While the potential for the loss of 30,000 jobs is real, there is nuance, as chief wealth economist at Old Mutual, Izak Odendaal, explained to Daily Maverick.

“You can’t say that as of this morning, the whole industry has collapsed,” he said. “It’s about whether individual US customers choose to absorb the tariffs, cancel contracts or gradually unwind their supply chains.”

While Odendaal highlighted the automotive sector as particularly vulnerable, he made it clear that both the record of tariff uncertainty coupled with the pivot to new markets mitigated the risk of Trumpian tariffs. 

“These are economic policies pursued for political reasons,” said Odendaal. “Brazil getting 50% tariffs and Canada 35% suggests this is less about economics and more about realignment or punishment.” He added that US courts might still challenge whether such tariffs complied with trade laws that permitted restrictions only for economic emergencies.

“The hard truth,” Odendaal added, “is that South Africa doesn’t have much leverage. We don’t export anything to the US that they can’t get elsewhere. So our best bet is to be pragmatic — use our foreign policy to unlock trade, not constrain it.”

He suggested that if long-standing allegiances — such as ties to Iran or Cuba — came with measurable economic costs, the government should be transparent with citizens about those trade-offs, without suggesting moral compromise.

Read more: Uncertainty and fear haunt automotive industry in wake of tariff increases

Left in the lurch

Tau and Lamola said that their teams had been working frantically for months to secure a trade deal with the US to avert Trump’s punishing tariffs. 

“Since the beginning of the seventh administration, South Africa embarked on a process to stabilise and enhance mutually beneficial trade and investment relations with the US. The aim has been to address long-standing bilateral issues of concern for both sides in ways that move the trade relations forward. South Africa has been engaging the US at various levels with a view to ensuring predictability in trade. However, even with these efforts, the US decided to impose a 30% unilateral tariff on South Africa,” said Lamola. 

South Africa proffered a proposed framework deal to US trade representatives in Washington in May, before Ramaphosa and Trump met at the White House on 21 May. At a meeting in June, US representatives told Department of Trade, Industry and Competition officials that they needed to revise this proposal, in accordance with the Trump administration’s new template for US trade with sub-Saharan Africa, which they said would be shared “soon”.

On Monday, Tau revealed that this template, in fact, never arrived. 

According to Tau, after waiting for the template, the department followed up, and the US then suggested that SA sign a confidentiality agreement that would “unlock the discussions”. 

“We signed the confidentiality agreement. We did not get a signed confidentiality agreement on the other side,” he said. 

Two days before Trump’s 1 August deadline, Pretoria asked the US for the trade template and confidentiality agreement. However, Tau said the feedback from America was to regard the template as a “red herring at this point”, and to put forward a trade offer for the US to respond to. 

Tau said SA was told “that offer should not be a negotiating offer”. 

“It’s a very difficult negotiating platform to enter into,” he added. “When you are in that situation, part of your reality is that you actually don’t know what tariff you’re going to get even after making that offer.”

‘Cheap political scoring’

Lamola said that Pretoria’s efforts to reset the relationship with Washington had been “undermined by some actors” within South Africa. 

He accused political parties, including some of those in the Government of National Unity (GNU), of “cheap political scoring” on this issue. Lamola said this “undermined” the process.

“Our view is that, when you’re dealing with such complex issues, all South Africans should speak with one voice in the national interest — whether [in] opposition or in the GNU,” he said.

Read more: Increasingly divisive politics dooms SA’s attempt to define its ‘national interest’

This comes after both the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition and the Presidency have issued statements condemning, in particular, the DA’s actions in relation to SA-US relations. Last week, Tau accused the DA of continuing to release “reckless statements” that undermined the progress the department was making toward the 1 August deadline set by Trump. 

In a statement issued on 4 August, the DA blamed ministers Tau and Lamola for the tariff outcome, accusing them of “negligence and ineptitude” in failing to secure a trade deal.

The party criticised the new Export Support Desk as a “laughable help desk” and pointed to Botswana’s reduced 15% tariff as evidence of better diplomacy in the region. 

Commenting on whether issues such as BEE and South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice played a role in tariff negotiations, Lamola said: “We didn’t want to focus on speculation, whether it was affirmative action or any other politics… We remain open to engage the US.”

Asked by reporters who was to blame for SA’s failure to secure a trade deal with the US, Tau said the government remained “focused on the task and not on who to blame”. 

“Should we be apportioning blame? I think we should leave that to those who seek to score political points, as opposed to finding solutions to the challenges that we have,” said Tau. DM