Hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake as Trump makes decision on South Africa

It is quite possible to be nostalgic, without wanting to go back to what was. Ntombolo Stuurman misses the days when there were fewer employees at the company outside the South African coastal town of Gqeberha and everyone knew each other. In recent years, DC Foods has grown strongly. Now 3,000 colleagues work in several shifts and pack sorbet in frozen fruit peels in a chilled industrial premises. The sorbet is to be exported to the USA and ends up on the low-price chain Costco's store shelves. There are so many employees that you have lost the feeling of a family business, says Ntombolo.

But she hardly wants to think about what the consequences would be if the employer DC Foods is forced to scale back production.

- There are no other jobs, so we have no alternative if these disappear, she says.

Colleague Ncumisa Maxwuele summarizes what it is all about:

- Everyone here is currently talking about what will happen to Agoa.

Agoa – the African Growth and Opportunity Act – is the legislation introduced at the turn of the millennium by then-President Bill Clinton that provided duty-free access to the US market for a range of goods from various African countries. During several administrations in the White House, the initiative has been extended.

Outside of Gqeberha, it is tangible how signatures on archive paper in Washington can over time lead to concrete investments and job opportunities in a completely different part of the world. The free trade zone opened in 2001, the year after Agoa was signed by Clinton. Today, 12,000 people work in the area, which in total comprises 9,000 football pitches of industrial land with access to a deep harbor and uninterrupted electricity.

Today, the country accounts for a third of all African exports to the United States within the framework of Agoa. DC Foods alone fills 1,000 containers of sorbet each year – but there are also car factories, solar panel manufacturers and dairy companies here.

But on Monday, this may be the end. Donald Trump is then expected to decide whether South Africa can stay in the collaboration. If he wants to throw South Africa out, he must do so on Monday for the decision to take effect at the turn of the year.

At a rough estimate, around 60,000 jobs in South Africa are directly dependent on Agoa. But without sorbet exports, no trucks or fruit pickers are needed further up the production chain. Looking at the bigger picture, it is about half a million jobs in a country where the official unemployment figure is 33.6 percent. Among young people up to the age of 35, one in two is unemployed.

Exactly why Donald Trump has chosen South Africa as an object of hatred is unclear. In his circle are several conservative white South Africans, such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who may have influenced Trump. Since he took office for the second time last January, he has repeatedly attacked South Africa.

At an infamous press conference at the White House last year, when Trump claimed without any basis in reality that there was going to be a genocide against white farmers in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to use all his skills to survive the diplomatic ambush into which he had fallen.

Recently Ramaphosa said at a lunch with journalists in Johannesburg that everything in their power had been done to appease the US and that both the House of Representatives and the Senate had given the green light to South Africa.

- Now it's up to Trump. It would be devastating for South Africa if we lose our Agoa status, said Ramaphosa who emphasized the importance of South Africa forging new trade agreements with other partners.

China is one such partner, which recently offered African countries similar duty-free trade terms on selected products. But China does not have the purchasing power of the United States. And it is not enough just to abolish tariffs, explains Murray Price who is production manager at DC Foods.

- We are trying to get into the Chinese market, but it is heavily regulated. We are also looking at Japan and South Korea, but from a commercial point of view it is not enough at the moment, he says.