US polls: how they affect SA

TRADE: COUNTRY MAY GET BETTER TREATMENT - EXPERTS

- Eric Naki

South Africa should expect better treatment on trade from Kamala Harris than under Donald Trump, who wants the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine to end even before he assumes office, if he wins.

This is the view of experts, who speculated on future American foreign policy under each of the candidates contesting to become the 47th US president in today's election.

Political and international relations analyst Dominic Maphaka and diplomacy specialist and risk analyst Dr Kingsley Makhubela both say like incumbent President Joe Biden, Harris would fuel the Ukrainian-Russian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

Maphaka said Trump would withdraw military backing for Israel and Ukraine and use his proximity to Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war – a sentiment shared by Makhubela, who said Trump wanted no war in those areas.

Polls in the US indicated that the two candidates were neck-and-neck as they concluded their campaigns in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.