SA will retain preferential access to US

SA is retaining preferential access to the US market despite the Trump administration’s decision to remove the country’s exemption from trade-remedy laws.

In February, the US narrowed its internal list of developing and least-developed countries to exclude SA, China and India. That reduced the threshold for triggering a US investigation into whether nations are harming its industries with unfairly subsidised exports.

The US trade representative’s (USTR’s) update to the list of developing or least-developed countries only applies to US countervailing duty investigations, the agency said on Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions.

“It does not impact” the US generalised system of preferences programme or eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), the USTR said.

Trade in goods and services between SA and the US was valued at $18.9bn (about R290bn) in 2018.

A total of $2.4bn of exports from Africa’s most-industrialised economy were cleared under the so-called GSP, the US’s oldest and largest trade-preference programme for the world’s poorest economies, and Agoa preferential programmes, according to US government data.

In a separate case, SA's preferential market access to the US is under review after the USTR accepted a complaint from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) — a US private — sector group that represents companies including the makers and distributors of books, films, music and video games.

The IIPA alleges that SA's Copyright Amendment Bill and Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill fail to “provide adequate and effective protection” of US copyrights.

If the outcome of the review is negative, SA could lose its preferential market access under both the GSP and Agoa, which together allow most sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the US market for almost 7,000 products.

That could deepen the drag on an economy that fell into recession in 2019.

Bloomberg