Loathsome as they might be, communists do have a way with words. Vladimir Lenin supposedly said that “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. This was such a week for South Africa and the world.

While I am used to a rapid news cycle, it seemed like this week was packed with one consequential event after another. This made choosing a topic for my column more difficult than usual. Three events stand out.

Is AGOA a Goner?

We woke up on Monday morning to discover that the United States (US) had suspended South Africa and Rwanda from participation in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), US legislation that provides sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free trade access to the American market.

In a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, US President Donald Trump declared that South Africa’s AGOA eligibility had been revoked because of its inability to deal with bribery and corruption, the presence of tariff and non-tariff barriers on US imports, as well as international security concerns.

Although there is still time to make things right (until 1 January 2027), this is not great news for South African exporters of automobiles and agricultural goods (such as citrus and macadamia nuts), who will feel these effects most directly.

Reuters reports that South Africa exported approximately US$1.7 billion worth of goods under AGOA in 2025, accounting for roughly 10% of its exports to the US. While we should not downplay the potential losses, AGOA benefits are relatively small in the context of South Africa’s overall trade profile with the US.

Moreover, the costs associated with the loss of AGOA eligibility pale in comparison to the harmful domestic policies imposed by our own government. So argued business group Sakeliga, which believes that the Trump administration is more animated by South Africa’s race-restrictive laws and threats to private property rights.

While civil society groups have tried their utmost to maintain South Africa’s inclusion in AGOA, the central government’s official foreign policy establishment has sought to antagonise the Americans by refusing to engage constructively with even the simplest American concerns.

Predictably, South Africa’s diplomatic establishment and the elite legacy media have tried to pin the blame on the likes of the Solidarity Movement, who it accuses of spreading “misinformation” in Washington, DC. This is a dishonest scapegoating of the very people trying to salvage the US-South Africa relationship.

The worry is that even more punitive sanctions are coming from the Americans that may dwarf the losses arising from South Africa’s suspension from AGOA.

The hope is that the US government takes a more differentiated approach and targets those responsible for promoting South Africa’s hostile laws, as it did with the visa restrictions introduced in September.

Blue Tsunami

On Tuesday, Americans went to the polls for the midterm elections and handed a resounding victory to the Democratic Party.

Democrats gained seven seats in the Senate, bringing their total to 54 seats against the Republicans’ 44 seats (two seats are held by independents who caucus with the Democrats).

Democrats also took the House of Representatives with the largest popular-vote victory since 1976. They also won control of a majority of state governorships in the gubernatorial elections.

Many of these victories were in traditional Republican strongholds. It was a wipeout.

While many, including US Vice-President JD Vance, blame Israel and the war with Iran for the Republicans’ undoing, it was ultimately economic factors that swayed the election.

While the war certainly contributed to high fuel prices, I would argue that trade protectionism played an even greater role. Tariffs might be a tempting bargaining chip when it comes to foreign affairs, but they are disastrous from an economic perspective.

Ultimately, tariffs are paid by domestic consumers at the till and not by the countries that are subjected to them. Unfortunately for Donald Trump and the Republicans, those same consumers also happen to be voters, many of whom rebelled against rising prices at the ballot box.

Trump has been better on energy policy and market deregulation than he has on trade policy. Unfortunately, I am not expecting the new blue majorities to implement a raft of pro-market reforms either.

One silver lining is that few American politicians will be willing to experiment with tariffs for a while to come.

Local is Lekker

Wednesday saw South Africa’s local government elections, our own version of the midterms. The results were still trickling in at the time of writing on Friday morning, but one thing is clear: the African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral defeat in its history.

I am sure this publication will be filled with insightful analysis of the results once they are finally in, but the collapse of the ANC is really the big story. Everything else is an offshoot of that.

ActionSA rebounded from its slump in 2024 by tearing votes away from the ANC in the townships of Gauteng. The uMkhonto weSizwe Party gorged itself on the carcass of the ANC in eThekwini. Even the South African Communist Party took a few bites out of its Tripartite Alliance partner in places like the Eastern Cape.

Last week, I wrote about how enemies make better coalition partners than rivals.

It is for this reason that I struggle to see how bitter rivals the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ActionSA could put aside their enmity and form a government in Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni.

Will the DA feel safer with its old enemy, the ANC, as a junior coalition partner?

In the final analysis, South Africa’s party-political landscape is starting to resemble the country itself: a highly plural society with multiple competing interests.

Oh, what a week it was. Bring on the weekend.

Ansara is CEO of the Free Market Foundation.