China and SA unite against US tariffs: A BRICS+ perspective

By Dr. Jaya Josie

During the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) of China’s parliament in Beijing on 7 March this year, the country’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a statement declaring that China will take countermeasures in response to arbitrary pressure from the US imposing further trade tariffs.

Before this statement, on 18 February 2025, at the G20 foreign ministers' meeting, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola also made a statement challenging the use of US pressure on South Africa, cutting USAID funding for its HIV program, and calling on South Africa to abandon its constitutional land reform program.

On Saturday, 8 March 2025, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and its Foreign Minister Sayed Abbas Araghchi also challenged the US attempts to use talk of negotiations as a pretext to apply more pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

Recently, widely published in the media, three members of the BRICS+—Iran, Russia, and China—demonstrated their longstanding naval cooperation partnership by jointly conducting naval military exercises along the Iranian coast. While the BRICS+ is not a military alliance, its members freely engage in joint naval military cooperation, as did the South African, Russian, and Chinese navies along South Africa’s Indian Ocean coastline in February 2023.

All three countries are members of the BRICS+ group and, together with Russia, have systematically refused to be bullied into submission by the new Trump administration. In addition to these three countries, Egypt, another member of the BRICS+ from Africa, has refused to succumb to US pressure to take in Palestinians displaced from Gaza as a result of Israel’s genocidal war against the citizens in the region.

Other Arab members of the BRICS+ bloc have, in fact, rejected Donald Trump’s proposal to turn the Gaza Strip into some kind of Riviera for real estate developers following the attack on Palestinians. Both Wang Yi and Ronald Lamola also made it absolutely clear in their statements that China and South Africa support the inalienable rights of Palestinians to their homeland.

Russia, at the UN Security Council, also opposed any displacement of Palestinians. Egypt, together with other Arab countries, including members of the BRICS+, proposed an alternative plan of action for the reconstruction of Gaza. In addition, recently, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have openly supported the Arab Plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.

However, long before President Trump promoted himself as a global peacemaker, the BRICS+ members have been at the forefront of seeking peaceful solutions to conflicts in Ukraine since 2022 and in Palestine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, declared that Beijing will “firmly counter” United States pressure after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods. The Minister added that despite China’s good intentions to engage in positive efforts to negotiate, China’s intentions have been met with an evil response, possibly provoking a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

On South Africa’s side, there was silence to the country’s attempts to re-engage the Trump administration on economic relations between the two countries. In fact, recently, the US administration has taken a bellicose position against South Africa’s constitutionally mandated land reform program and cut off USAID financial support for South Africa’s fight against HIV.

Last month at the G20 meeting, Ronald Lamola indicated that he was setting up meetings to mobilize support with a number of countries, including China, to discuss the threats South Africa faces from the US position.

Although South Africa is not totally dependent on US aid for its HIV program, many in the country feel that the country’s preferential trade status under the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) may also come under pressure from the US administration. With its affiliation to the BRICS+ and its commitment to a non-aligned position in geopolitical conflicts, South Africa is being viewed as the most vulnerable and, therefore, being targeted for bullying in the superpower rivalry amongst the US, EU, China, and Russia.

In the context of international relations, and international trade in particular, how will China and South Africa deal with the implications of US trade tariffs and sanctions? China has promised to respond with a reciprocal tariff regime against goods imported from the US. Of course, this will start a trade war cycle that will go against mutually beneficial trade relations between two of the most powerful economies in the world.

China and other BRICS+ members want to avoid a trade war. In his statement during the NPC meeting in Beijing, Minister Wang Yi warned that in a globalized world, the unique pursuit of national interests by countries will lead to the “law of the jungle.”

Already, both countries have introduced retaliatory tariffs since January 2025. However, Wang Yi was quick to point out that current China-US trade ties are mutual and could be beneficial to both countries if there was no pressure from tariffs from either country. Mr. Wang Yi went further to reiterate that no country should imagine that it can suppress China while at the same time trying to develop good relations with the country.

As if to underscore this point, one of the major decisions of the NPC meeting was for a 5% growth rate over the forthcoming economic cycle. Notwithstanding these bilateral tensions, Minister Wang Yi insisted that the USA and China have mutually broad common interests and space for cooperation.

It is ironic that the USA, a founding member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a signatory to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), is now adopting policies contrary to the principles of these institutions.

The implications of higher trade tariffs generally lead to reduced trade, higher prices for consumers, and potential negative economic impacts for exporting and importing countries.

Underscoring Minister Wang Yi’s view that there are no winners in a trade war, a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) study by Lukas Boer & Malte Rieth, entitled The Macroeconomic Consequences of Import Tariffs and Trade Policy Uncertainty, published in 2024, provided evidence that unexpected increases in import tariffs and in trade policy uncertainty will most likely have negative consequences for the macroeconomic fundamentals in the US economy and will not significantly assist in redistributing economic activity across sectors or space.

For China, South Africa, and other BRICS+ economies, US trade tariffs are likely to shift trade policy towards trade diversion, targeting the huge markets in China, Africa, the Belt and Road Initiative, Eurasia, the Middle East, and Asia.

With a targeted growth rate increase of 5%, China’s internal market is expected to grow bigger. US trade tariffs, sanctions, and trade policy uncertainty will most likely hurt the US economy more than China, South Africa, and the BRICS+ economies.

There are no winners in a trade war.

*Dr. Jaya Josie is an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.