US tariffs on South Africa set to hit white farmers Trump has embraced
Source: Reuters
July 10, 2025 2:05 AM EDT Updated 6 hours ago
CITRUSDAL, South Africa, July 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's threatened 30% tariff on South African exports is set to deal an economic blow to a community he has vocally and controversially championed: white farmers. Citing false claims that white South Africans are being persecuted, Trump has cut aid to the country, publicly berated its president in the Oval Office and invited Afrikaners - descendants of early European settlers - to come to the United States as refugees. But for white farmers who remain rooted in their homeland and aspire to keep making a living from the land, the tariffs due to come into effect on August 1 are an assault on those ambitions.
"It doesn't make sense to us to welcome South African farmers in America and then the rest that stays behind ... to punish them," said Krisjan Mouton, a sixth-generation farmer in Western Cape province's citrus heartland. "It's going to have a huge impact," he said, standing among rows of trees heavy with navel oranges on his farm near the town of Citrusdal. "It's not profitable to export anymore to the USA."
After a three-month pause, Trump escalated the global trade offensive he launched in April, announcing tariffs on more than a dozen countries on Monday, including South Africa. Its citrus fruit, along with wine, soybeans, sugar cane and beef, had previously benefited from duty-free access to the U.S. under the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act.
Helped by that trade initiative, South Africa, the world's second-largest citrus exporter after Spain, generates $100 million annually from the U.S. market. The new tariff ends that preferential treatment. And with three-quarters of South Africa's freehold land white-owned, white farmers will face the immediate economic fallout though they will not be the only casualties.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-tariffs-south-africa-set-hit-white-farmers-trump-has-embraced-2025-07-09/
This is what happens when "World History" is taught as mostly "European history" and the rest of the world gets an asterisk mention. That is why the similar idiocy of not knowing the history of a country like Liberia.
Take note of this -
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