South Africa prepares to engage the US on tariff reductions and trade agreements

THE Department of Trade Industry and Competition (the dtic) has said the United States’ latest shift to reduce tariffs on countries including South Africa to 30% were fertile ground for negotiations.

- BANELE GININDZA

This comes as South Africa's trade representatives prepare to meet with their US counterparts for a concerted approach to the revision of trade facilitation agreements.

Speaking on Radio 702 on Thursday morning, Tau said the government was planning its engagement and the issues to engage the US about.

Tau said that it was clear the US now wanted only mutually beneficial agreements as it viewed previous tariffs and other structures had been disproportionately skewed in South Africa's favour, along with other countries.

"We had already started raising with the US the need to revise the trade and investment facilitation agreement that we had to normalise trade between the two countries. We would want to build on that, it would include agricultural products," Tau said.