President Trump said on Monday that he planned to remove South Africa from a preferential trade program with the United States, the latest in his administration’s attacks on the continent’s largest economy.
Mr. Trump told Congress and the South African government that he intended to remove the country from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a program established in 2000 to benefit African economies.
According to a statement from Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, the administration was “deeply concerned by barriers to U.S. trade and investment, corruption and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests” posed by South African policies.
The statement did not offer further details. South Africa’s removal from the program is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. Mr. Greer’s statement said that Rwanda was also being removed.
Mr. Trump and members of his administration have consistently criticized South Africa’s affirmative action laws, which were meant to help address the inequalities created by the system of apartheid.
Mr. Trump has argued that such laws discriminate against the country’s white minority. He has also criticized a law that requires companies to have partial Black ownership, saying it stymies American investment in South Africa.
Mr. Trump has falsely claimed that Afrikaners, a white ethnic group in South Africa, were being killed in a genocide and that the South African government was seizing Afrikaner-owned land. The president has also criticized the South African government for maintaining close diplomatic ties with Iran and filing a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
When Mr. Trump announced global tariffs last year, South Africa was among the nations targeted with an especially high rate — 30 percent.
While South African officials worked to broker a trade deal with the United States, they also sought to expand trade ties with other nations, anticipating that the Trump administration would eventually exclude South Africa from the trade program.
South Africa’s Trade Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the U.S. decision was “unfortunate,” adding that South Africa would continue to explore mutually beneficial trade agreements with Washington while also working to diversify its trading partners.
High tariffs are among several punitive actions that the Trump administration has taken against South Africa. In September, Washington imposed visa restrictions on South Africans the administration accused of discriminating against white people. At the time, U.S. officials said that South Africa would face further punitive measures if it did not agree to several U.S. demands, including changing the country’s affirmative action laws.
Mr. Trump also barred South Africa from attending the Group of 20 summit scheduled to be held in Florida next month.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act allows dozens of African nations to export certain goods duty-free to the United States. The U.S. trade representative leads an annual review of the program to determine if there are countries that have become ineligible for violations such as human rights abuses or threats to national security.
South Africa has been the largest beneficiary of the program. Last year, it exported about $1.5 billion worth of goods to the United States through the program, or about 10 percent of its overall exports to America.
Although Mr. Trump made the decision to remove the country from the program, South Africa’s eligibility had also been called into question by the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
In 2023, South Africa was criticized by the U.S. government for its support of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. American lawmakers also criticized South Africa for its relations with Hamas and Iran in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
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