US' biggest beef with SA

"We will not," President Cyril Ramaphosa assured the nation, "be bullied."

- William Saunderson-Meyer

He was responding to a dizzying bombardment of punitive measures issued by US President Donald Trump in the form of executive orders. Over the course of barely a fortnight, the US temporarily froze presidential funding for Aids relief worth more than R8 billion annually, research grants worth about R800 million annually, stopped other government financial aid worth R1.2 billion annually and put a question mark over our continued participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act preferential trade agreement, putting at risk 250,000 jobs in the motor industry alone.

Trump also cheekily offered refugee status to Afrikaner farmers to protect them from the expropriation without compensation. This was followed in short order by Secretary of State Marc Rubio announcing that he would not attend next month's G20 summit in Johannesburg, the first under Ramaphosa's leadership.