AGOA

• For China, the US is the source of global insecurity.
• The growing tensions pose a political and economic challenge for South Africa.
• I argue that South Africa should not choose between its BRICS or EU and US partnerships.
• The west remains economically significant for South Africa, but the BRICS bloc is important for South Africa’s economic adaptability.

The BRICS bloc

• At its 2011 summit, the bloc called for an end to the long reign of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency (de-dollarisation).
• The emergence of BRICS not only strengthens south-south relations, it weakens the inequality that characterises north-south relations.
• Read more:
  South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained

  The BRICS bloc serves as a counterweight to some of the excesses of US unilateralism that’s been a feature of global governance since the end of the Soviet Union in 1989.

• The emergence of the BRICS bloc has overshadowed the G7+ meetings while centralising the G20 as an international platform for political and economic coordination.

South Africa and the west

• South Africa is the largest US and EU trading partner in Africa, with the US totalling R289 billion (about US$16 billion in 2021) and the EU totalling a trade of R699 billion (about US$ 38 billion in 2021.
• South Africa also benefits from the preferential access to US markets for some of its exports in terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA.

BRICS’ growing economic importance

• Trade and investment links between South Africa and China have improved too.
• Investments from South Africa into BRICS countries have surged since it became a bloc member.
• And China is an important trading partner for South Africa standing at R479 billion (about US$26 billion), above the US.

Navitaging anxieties

• Of course, the problem of South Africa’s strained relations with the west is not South Africa’s.
• Read more:
  How values, interests and power must shape South Africa's foreign policy

  For its own interests, South Africa must carefully navigate western anxieties about BRICS, and demonstrate that there is a common future for both the west and others in a multipolar world.