This is how it looks when the largest economy in the world is run by a king. At the beginning of the year I noted “This [Trump] is a man with an incredibly tenuous grip on how global trade works, yet he […]
America is being (not so) secretly run by a cabal of South Africans (Elon Musk, Patrick Soon-Shiong, David Sacks, and Peter Thiel – ok born in Germany and grew up in Namibia, but close enough). Trump thinks he is the most powerful […]
Industrial policy is typically either focused on import replacement (the South African model) or export led policy (Asian Tigers). These are not mutually exclusive ideas, but the primary focus is different. The first assumes that by removing import competition we will build […]
25% of South African beef exports went to China in the last year (R290 million) , making China our largest export destination for beef. All of this is at risk if safeguard duties are imposed. This is an emergency action, so we […]
This is going to be a wild year. This is a statement you can make with confidence in any year where Donald Trump will be president. If 2024 was the Year of the Election, with four billion eligible voters going to the […]
The story goes something like this. You protect your factories against imports, mainly by way of import duties and / or subsidies, until they become competitive and then those competitive businesses will export. This give us both import replacement and export driven […]
The International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) has just accepted comments on the Price Preference System (PPS), the set of rules which force scrap metal generators and recyclers to sell their scrap metal at a discount to local consumers. Only if these consumers […]
I asked my LinkedIn audience to agree or not, with the following statement. Here is the result. Correct answer Tariffs are taxes paid by importers on imported goods. Importers are local businesses so these taxes are paid by local companies. When President-elect […]
On 5 November Americans go to the polls to elect Potus 47. It unnerves me, but I suspect when President Ramaphosa calls to congratulate the winner, he will be speaking to the Honourable Comrade President Donald Trump. Price controls It is darkly […]
ITAC is properly on top of things! The import duties on wheat and wheat flour have been increased from zero to R4.22 per kg for wheat and to R6.329 per kg for wheat flour. This is how it should work, not the […]