On the Response by Government to United States Tariffs

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes the statement issued by the South African government in response to the unilateral imposition of 30% tariffs by the United States. However, we reject this statement as weak, impotent, and inconsequential.

The joint statement by the Minister of International Relations and the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, is a reactionary utterance that reflects poor preparation and a deep lack of understanding of the shifting global geopolitical terrain. The government’s failure to anticipate and adequately respond to these developments is a direct result of its incoherent, ideologically bankrupt foreign and economic policies. The coalition of neoliberal parties in government cannot act decisively because they are constantly at war with each other and have no shared vision for national economic security.

We reiterate that the South African economy is disfigured and dysfunctional. For the past 30 years, the ANC-led government has failed to reorganise the structure of the economy away from its apartheid foundation. It has chosen to preserve colonial patterns of ownership and production, leading to over 12 million unemployed people and the highest levels of racial inequality in the world. In such a stagnant and extractive economy, any attempt to position South Africa within the global trade environment becomes futile. Without resolving domestic structural constraints, our country will always be at the mercy of dominant imperial powers, tossed between competing global interests like a leaf in a storm.

Donald Trump is an unstable and illiterate imperialist whose misuse of economic power threatens both the capitalist and socialist world order. His reckless and irrational tariff regime is rooted in a misguided understanding of global trade and is designed to impose American dominance by destabilising weaker economies. He represents a serious threat to global economic stability and the sovereignty of nations in the Global South.

The EFF has long maintained that Trump’s presidency is a danger to humanity, and it is time for all progressive forces across the world to unite and support efforts to remove him from office. The world has suffered under his strong-arm tactics for too long, and just as the United States has imposed regime change globally, it is now time to assist the people of the United States in unseating their own dictator.

There is an urgent need for South Africa to develop a coherent and ideologically grounded National Economic Security Policy. This must begin by addressing inequality, unemployment, and poverty through domestic industrialisation, beneficiation, and land reform. Equally, a progressive foreign policy must emerge— one that prioritises building alliances with trading partners such as China, Brazil, Russia, and countries in the Global South, not through begging, but through mutually beneficial cooperation.

While the US market is significant, this is not a time for sheepish diplomacy. The team that negotiated on behalf of South Africa was weak, apologetic, and subservient. They were treated like school children by the United States because they acted like school children. This behaviour exposes the dangers of sending spineless envoys to do the bidding of capital.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), much like AfriForum and Solidarity, is a political extension of right-wing, white supremacist interests that seek to protect apartheid privileges under the guise of liberal constitutionalism. It operates with the same logic of racial gatekeeping, economic sabotage, and disinformation. Its presence in the Government of National Unity (GNU) is not a gesture of reconciliation but a strategic effort to weaken the state from within. The DA uses state resources to undermine the very government it serves in, while pursuing an agenda that protects monopoly capital and foreign interests. It is a snake fed at the dinner table of democracy, only to poison the well at night.

We reaffirm the need for South Africa to align with progressive trading partners who respect national sovereignty, support industrial development, and do not treat trade as an extractive, transactional affair. The EFF calls for the urgent acceleration of trade agreements and partnerships outside of the United States. This must not be done through bureaucratic support desks, but through decisive, strategic, and politically coherent engagements with countries that share a vision for a just global economy. Forums such as the G20 must be used to shift trade away from dependence on imperial powers and toward a multipolar order built on mutual respect, solidarity, and shared development.

The EFF has received both praise and criticism for its confrontational style.

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