It pays to have powerful people on your side, which is also to say you probably don’t want to upset Barack Obama. Unfortunately it seems like we have, given that the United States yesterday moved to ‘suspend trade benefits for South African farm products’.

In a letter to Congress, Obama laid out his intentions to revoke duty-free status for South African agricultural goods within the next two months. IOL with more:

“I am taking this step because South Africa continues to impose several longstanding barriers to US trade, including barriers affecting certain US agricultural exports,” he said…

South Africa has banned US poultry imports since last December after an outbreak of bird flu. The measure came on top of 15 years of punitive import duties on some US chicken products.

The country missed an October 15 deadline to agree on new animal health and food safety rules, which also affect US beef and pork exports, prompting the United States to warn that its eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade programme was at risk.

South Africa is still doing a pretty decent trade with the US, last year’s agricultural exports under AGOA alone totalling $176 million. If Obama is successful in revoking those trade benefits potential losses range between $4 and $7 million, affecting products like wine, macadamia nuts and citrus.

One wonders if Obama might get Luther his anger translator involved?

[source:iol]