South Africa suspends American businesses and mineral exports
South Africa suspends American businesses and mineral exports - The Maravi Post
I wish I could find another source to confirm this, but if true, that's basically the nuclear option to kick out all American companies and halt all mineral exports to the US.
I'd be pretty skeptical of this. As you said, no one else is reporting what would be huge news. I can't find the quote attributed to "a spokesperson for the South African government" anywhere else either. There isn't a named person in the article. This source seems sketchy, though I can't find any bias monitor info on them. That 'from the desk of the president' graphic is also just kinda weird.
The closest to this story I can find is this Feb 3rd story from a mining conference:
South Africa’s Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, told delegates in his opening address that Africa should withhold minerals if funding is withdrawn.
‘from the desk of the president’ graphic
That graphic is indeed very strange and a massive red flag.
This is almost certainly some sort of clickbait farm.
Yeah I agree. I came across the article as I like to read up on what's going on with BRICS countries as that seems like something worth keeping an eye on. But the lack of confirmation is troublesome. Even something like a giant trade deal with China that would give them some standing to call Trump's bluff would lend some credibility. It could be that this was threatened during negotiations and someone jumped the gun to say it's now policy? If I see any more about it one way or another, I will update the post.
I haven't seen any reliable sources say this yet.
An article from February 3 https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/minerals/?hilite=minerals by the country's public broadcaster, quotes the Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, saying South Africa's minerals should be withheld from US, but I've seen no reports that it actually will be.
I also couldn't find anything at the government's website https://www.gov.za/, nor via DDG at Reuters or AP.
No local news sources reporting this in SA ..
Good news if true. Setting and defending personal boundaries is essential in any relationship and especially dealing with a narcissist. It's not that different at the international scale.
China has been buying and stealing south africa piece by piece for decades. land, mines, politicians. Everything. This will have very negative consequences for all of sa.
They are not defending their boundaries. This is just going to feed the other beast. This just cuts off americas influence on SA, and lets china go full hog into it. This was just they were waiting for.
Most of what Trump/Musk has been doing will directly benefit China. He says they are an enemy and adds tariffs but mostly China is the winner in all of this and will be long term.
I wonder where American military will start aggressively supporting American interests next?
Inside the US. President Musk and the Cuck-in-Chief plan to cut the Pentagon budget in half. I mean, the defense contractors will still get plenty of cash but there won't be enough trained volunteer soldiers.
Good.
https://interobservers.com/south-africa-suspends-american-business/. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/rand-slumps-after-trump-says-he-will-cut-funding-south-africa-2025-02-03/
Wow, yeah it’s true, found more sources that confirm too.
It looks like that first link just references the original article. Seems to be an AI generated summary, too.
Sweeping tariffs combined with cutting off aid, curtailing imports from across the world will make America extremely weak.
trump doesn't understand this. The USA gets away with a lot of shit because it does a lot of other good. If we remove the good, we lose the tolerance for our shit.
I'm worried that his response will be military coercion...
Just like Felon...stop making electric cars or launching useful satellites and he's gonna get the reprisal of the public.... Much more than now. I assume.
Almost as if that's the whole point.
I think this guy is very likely going to invade an Ally once he's consolidated his coup.
Wonder who it would be.
glances nervously at the 51st state to the North
Lower supply of key goods should help with inflation, right? Ugh