President Donald Trump on Monday imposed a 30% tax on goods imported from South Africa, citing persistent trade imbalances.

He announced on his media platform, Truth Social, that the tariffs will take effect on 1 August.

The Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday evening, Central African Time, that the letter Trump posted on Truth Social discourages retaliatory duties. In the letter, Trump warns President Cyril Ramaphosa not to implement tariff increases on the United States, stating that such action would result in a further 30% increase on top of the existing 30%.

Similar letters were also sent to countries such as South Korea and Japan, which face 25% tariff increases. It is understood that the wording of the letters is identical, although this is yet to be confirmed.

The letters warned South Africa and other US trading partners not to retaliate by raising their own import taxes.

When the American tariffs were initially announced on 2 April, they were intended to ‘re-balance’ existing trade imbalances, as claimed by the Trump administration, although this has been consistently disproved.

The 1 August deadline to potentially avoid the tariffs is consistent with an interview CNN held with the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, over the weekend.

Although he did not explicitly state that tariffs could be avoided, he said that countries would have until 1 August to make a deal with the US.

Asked if it was a new deadline, he said no, but he also did not deny that it could be seen as a last-ditch opportunity to avoid Trump's "reciprocal tariffs".

• This is a developing story, uploaded at midnight on 7 July.

Source：Freight news