TONY LEON: How Trump's trade war with China could impact SA
'Even our most objective analysts did not even a month ago anticipate a looming trade war'
South Africa is embroiled in a number of raucous debates – land, inequality, race, Jacob Zuma’s appearance in the criminal dock, Vicki Momberg’s jail sentence and, more recently, how to remember Winnie Mandela. But in this war of words and flaming rhetoric we are in danger of missing the greatest threat to our economy and the hopes of recharging growth and jobs, the two essentials for the much-spoken, seldom-sighted “better life for all” to borrow the ANC election slogan. From this list there is much we could and should have done to improve our sovereign economic prospects. But what if the greatest danger that might blow the hopes which accompanied the arrival of Cyril Ramaphosa and the junking of his economically reckless predecessor lies beyond our shores and completely outside our control?Last Friday, the hitherto booming US stock market took a big hit, with one day’s trading losses in the S&P 500 Index down 2.2% – which cumulatively since the beginning of 2018 has lost 10% over...
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