My bestie and your bestie sit down by the fire; Your bestie says: So, can we make these flames go higher?” If you’re unaware, these lyrics come from the hit song Iko Iko. 

I’ve always wanted to give a column a title so nonsensical that it would have academics scratching their heads over its intellectual merit. Why now? Well, does the world make sense to you? Maybe it never did. Now it makes even less sense. And if you are talking tariffs, those flames are certainly going higher.

Unsurprisingly, I am writing this column in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on goods imported into the US. On April 4, The Telegraph newspaper ran a story headlined ‘Every country is calling us: Trump’s tariffs spark global scramble to strike trade deals’, accompanied by this secondary headline: ‘Other nations must offer something phenomenal to win a reprieve, insists US President’. The obvious question is: Which ‘besties’ are speaking? Well, maybe not quite besties, but who’s speaking? Clearly, this doesn’t involve the World Trade Organisation, which begs the question: Where does all this leave the organisation?

Not even penguins were spared from the US tariffs, with Heard Island and McDonald Islands – an Australian external territory comprising mostly volcanic, barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica – making the list. I can’t help but wonder what Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico from the Penguins of Madagascar would make of it all. Using their famous lines:

Private: “It’s no good, Skipper. I don’t know the codes.” (Presumably referring to the Commodity Codes, or HS Codes.)

Skipper: “Don’t give me excuses! Give me results!”

Kowalski: “Ninety-five per cent certain we’re still doomed.”

Rico: “Kaboom.”

At this point, Trump might channel King Julien (King of the Lemurs): “Too late, silly penguins! Already going to expand my kingdom with the most mayhemiest destructo machine ever!” Again, presumably referring to the ‘reciprocal tariffs’.

The imposed tariffs might well be the ‘most mayhemiest destructo machine ever’, but whether they will expand the ‘US kingdom’ is another matter. What’s certain, however, is that the world’s stock markets didn’t appreciate the tariffs, with a headline in The Guardian on April 4 screaming: ‘Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5-trillion off Wall Street’. An accompanying secondary headline added: ‘Economists say levies of between 10% and 50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn’.

Speaking to reporters on April 3, Trump said: “I think it’s going very well. It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on, and it’s a big thing. I said this would be exactly the way it is . . . We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.” Where he says “boom”, I hear “pop” and find myself humming: “Everybody, tell me, have you heard? Pop Goes the World . . .” – from the 1987 hit song by Men Without Hats, Pop Goes the World. Trump later said: “Every country is calling us. That’s the beauty of what we do. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favour, they would have said no. Now, they will do anything for us.”

This begs the question: Is President Cyril Ramaphosa calling? Ponder that for a moment. A tariff of more than 10% was imposed on “worst offenders” and countries said to “treat us badly”. According to the US, South Africa charges a 60% tariff on US imports, while Lesotho charges 99%. It’s unclear how these rates are calculated, as both countries are members of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu).

Sacu members were slapped with the following tariffs: South Africa, 31%; Botswana, 37%; Eswatini 10%; Lesotho, 50%; and Namibia, 21%. On April 3, the South African Presidency “noted with concern the newly imposed tariffs on South African exports to the US”, adding that the “tariffs affirm the urgency to negotiate a new bilateral and mutually beneficial trade agreement with the US, as an essential step to secure long-term trade certainty”.

Considering that the African Growth and Opportunity Act will go ‘Boom!’, what is the timeframe for South Africa’s “urgency to negotiate”?