Tariffs, imports hit South African sugar

Nkosinathi Msweli’s sugar cane farm in KwaDukuza — a rural, largely poor region on South Africa's eastern coast — has for three decades been a solid, albeit small, economic success story, employing eight full-time staff and 30 seasonal workers.

- SISIPHO SKWEYIYA

But cheap sugar imports were already eating into his earnings when US President Donald Trump announced a steep tariff on South African imports, creating what Mr Msweli called a “double whammy” that now leaves the 53-year-old facing tough choices.

“All in all, I will have to cut about 20 workers from this current season,” he told Reuters, as he watched his labourers chop cane from soot-blanketed fields. “The person that is here in the field maybe has 10 lives that he’s supporting.”

South Africa’s sugar industry, valued at around 25 billion rand ($1.42 billion), directly and indirectly supports over 300,000 jobs in a country with one of the world’s highest rates of unemployment.