There has been a deluge of more than 100 executive decisions taken by US President Donald Trump following his re-election in November, including the imposition of import tariffs on traditionally allied countries and trade partners.

South Africa is monitoring and evaluating the changes being made by this new US administration with the aim to engage its US counterparts with as detailed an understanding of the topics, issues and challenges the discussions will focus on as possible, said Ambassador of South Africa to the US Ebrahim Rasool.

“How South Africa responds to the current relations with the US demands a lot of perspective from us. For example, in terms of continuities inherited from previous US administrations, the Joe Biden administration started discussions for South Africa to be removed from the duty-free access framework African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) owing to some of our geopolitical stances.”

While Trump's policies seem to be of the shock and awe variety, South Africa should stay calm and wait for the administration to settle. There is likely to be some push-back and walk-back in the US on certain issues, he emphasised.

“Town hall meetings in the US may well do half the work that our envoys would wish to achieve, but, if we send envoys too early, they could distract a push-back and walk-back,” said Rasool during a webinar hosted by think tank the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) on March 14.

Other formations will have their say. South Africa should absorb the messages and then craft its response.

South Africa is engaging with law makers and public officers in the US to determine the issues and where these issues are ranked in hierarchy. This provides the country with a sense of the US's view of geopolitical hot-button issues.

Further, the country is refraining from engaging with its envoys at the moment. The administration has not yet filled all positions. For example, a Secretary and an Under-Secretary for Africa have not yet been appointed, he noted.

“Secondly, we cannot come empty-handed; we must be ready for transactional negotiation with the White House. We must firmly know what our top, middle and bottom lines are and then be open to negotiating the top line.

“We cannot afford to misrepresent the expectations of 60-million South Africans, and we cannot fall into the trap of binary options.”

Rasool said he was wary of proposals to simply disengage with the US or forego South Africa's trade with the US in favour of other nations.

“There are differences in our exports to China and to the US. About 80% of our exports to China are commodities, while about 70% of our exports to the US are manufactured goods.

“The fact of the matter is that we cannot trade off east and west, because one helps significantly with our foreign earnings and the other helps to drive us towards a higher development trajectory.”

South Africa must, of course, build its self-reliance, but this is a process; nor should it place all its eggs into one basket, such as by proposing to rely only on trade with the BRICS-Plus bloc, he added.

“Additionally, as the US takes over the presidency of global economic forum the Group of Twenty [in 2026], we should manage the hand-over as well as we can to salvage what we can of discussions.

“I am confident, but we are in unchartered waters and success is not certain, which means that we must communicate, up our game and work daily on these challenges and our responses to these changes,” Rasool said.