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Welcome back to the show.
This is the Obrimsango Show and my name is Comaso Modissa Info bro O. Thank you so much for tuning in. It is thirty three minutes past nine. Time for us now to have our second conversation in our current Affairs feature. And I mean we we're going to be speaking about bricks and the President being at the Brick Summit in Rio, but we cannot ignore what's just happened right now that letter written to President Sonadrama Passa by US President Donald Trump.
They're basically slapping South Africa with the thirty percent tariff on any and all South African goods sent into the United States. And I'm really excited to have Deale with us this evening to speak to us on this because he is a political economist.
Dale McKinley, welcome to the show. Good evening, Thank you.
So much for having me. Good evening to the listeners as well.
I've never been happier that we scheduled you to come speak to us on the show at this time, because when we said we were gonna have you on the show, we didn't know about these these tariffs, and now we've got this announcement, breaking news from the US.
What's just happened, Well, what's just happened is Trump Trump. This is this is the politics of Donald Trump, which is he makes decisions based upon his whims when he wakes up in the morning, and you know.
If he feels a particular way.
I mean, look, the signs were there, we know for months now, given you know, his his initial tariff announcements a few months back, and then backing off, and and then the meeting with the presidents and so forth. But I think it was the writing was always on the wall that was going to the question was how much? And I think what he what happened was in the Brick Summit, which we were obviously going to talk about.
You know, there was a there was a statement that was made yesterday by the US administration saying, you know those people who were wanting to sort of de dollar and go the bricks way, well.
We're going to punish you even more.
Yeah.
And given that South Africa is in the bricks sort of quartet, well then yeah, here we are.
And then instead of ten percent or twenty, it's thirty.
Sure, you say that we were thinking how much right we knew this was going to happen?
I mean, was thirty percent ever on the cards?
Well, I mean if you look at some of the other numbers that Trump was throwing around initially, remember it was one hundred there were one hundred and ten percent tasks on Vietnam, for example, or there was going to be I mean the Eswatini in swat the textiles.
And so that's the thing is that.
And I was just saying this on another analysis about Trump's politics, which is that his politics is chaotic, it's it's unpredictable, it's it's whims and so you never know what's going to happen. So yes, it could have been anything from ten percent to eighty percent.
Sure, And I mean, now we hear this thirty percent if you've had sight of the letter, but I read it a little earlier, And okay, I'm going to read your paragraph here because this sounds like a threat to me. The letter stants by detailing reasons why he thinks this this tariff is okay. He says, the relationship has been far from a reciprocal and they've had to do.
This, and then he says, if for any.
Reason you decide to raise your tariffs, then whatever the number you choose to raise them by will be added onto the thirty percent that we charge. Please understand that these tariffs are necessary to correct the many years of South Africa's tariff and non tariff policies and trade barriers. I mean, if there ever was a threat that that sounds, I could know absolutely.
I mean, and that's again, that's Donald Trump's politics. I mean, you remember he started off as administration by threatening to annex Canada, by threatening to buy ice, you know, Greenland, by threatening Panama by that's his that's his politics.
He threats. He's a bully.
And if and if you remember when he announced his tariffs, if you remember that ceremony in front of the White House where he had this you know, poster that he was showing in all the different countries including some island in the South Pacific that nobody lives on, that they were going to put tariffs on. It's there's no rationality, there's no real economic rationality to what he does. It's about transactional politics and he wants to be in charge. So he feels as though you know, he knows South
Africa is not economically that strong. At the moment, he knows we're in a difficult situation, so he's taking advantage of it.
And that's what bullies do.
What would the ideal response from President Somos be, Well.
That's a difficult question because it's it's a very tricky terrain. On the one level, you know, at a at a sort of rational moral should we say and sovereign level, you want to say, well, you want to basically say, listen, we can't be dictated to our member. You know. The first response of our president was that we're not going to be pushed around, and I think many South Africans
UH sort of supported that. But the reality is is that we live in a world where we don't call the shots, where we're dependent quite substantially on our exports, where the United States is an important market for several sectors of our economy, and these are things we can't
wish away and be naive about. So I think that it's in some ways, I think you're what you're going to get is you're going to get some people calling for him to take a very strong stand and basically to tell you know, Trump to back off and we're not going to be a threaten, threatened and intimidated, and that could be politically quite popular, but economically he's going to have to, I think, sort of find a middle
way in some ways. He's going to have to one, at one level defend the sovereignty of the country and basically make those kinds of political points, but the other end, basically seek a diplomatic solution and seek a sense of saying, can we you know, we can negotiate these things, or you know, trying to persuade the more should we say, rational minds within the Trump administration, of which there are very few, but there are some that you know, some of those some of these things are not going to
benefit the United States either, And you know that could work because three four months down the road, if things don't work out for Trump and things aren't going well, he can change his mind and he can reverse these things. That's what he does. So I think it's a middle road in some ways. But I think a strong political message is also necessary because if we don't, then we're going to be seen to be simply just how towing to the bully.
And I mean, I'm sure it's no coincidence that this is happening while there's a brick summit in Brazil.
Yes, clearly.
I mean it's tearly calculation.
It is, and I think and that's why I mentioned that.
The fact that you know, just the other day, just yesterday, when the administration was already making sounds, you know, they they saw this brick things and what they're worried about if the United States is and Trump is worried about anything.
You know, if you take.
The combined sort of if you're talking about GDP production and population everything of bricks, it outnumbers the G seven UH in that case in terms of economic potential and and and productivity and exports.
So this is not some small thing.
These And that's the thing is that he's trying to ward off. I think he's trying to sort of be you know, send these messages and warn people that if they don't follow him, if they don't pay attention to this, then he's going to you know, up the tasks more. He's going to do this or cut them off or whatever. But also remember that he doesn't He's not going to have it his own way all the time. China's no
small economy. China is almost rivaling the United States, India is also coming up and and these kinds of so he's going to have to is this is what you see Trump doing.
He makes these announcements and then he goes for buy that deals.
So he goes to the country and he starts making separate deals with you know, those particular countries.
And I think that's what you're also going to see.
So he's going to try to divide bricks as well and divide according to different kinds of agreements as opposed to treating it as a block as well.
And speaking of China, Cheting Ping has decided to skip the summit. I mean, can we read anything into this. There's been a lot of speculation.
Well, I think my I'm convinced by probably the explanation that says that.
For him, I think for two reasons.
One is that he's got a lot on his own hands, and I don't think he's He's been to Brazil several times, he did come to the previous bricks thing, so he's I don't think he saw it as as that fundamental.
But I think the main reason is because basically Lula and the President of Brazil decided that he was going to sort of have a contemporaneous state visit from India and from MODI think she was probably worried about being overshadowed by India and that sense, and that India and China don't have the closest to They might be in bricks together if it does. Let's remember that the war, the very brief war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
The Chinese were supporting Pakistan and we're and they've already had classes with India on their own borders. So it's a very complicated situation. I think she sort of looked at it and said, better to avoid this right now, I'll send you know, I'll send the sort of subordinates. He sees it as important, but I don't think he wanted to be outdone.
Should we say, mm and and and someone else?
A certain lad Vladimir Putin also not attending all.
He isn't any but he's just not physically there. Do you get the.
Sense that his hands and his feet are tied by him not not being able to move around.
Well, he's he's you know, he's made his own bed and now he's got to sleep in it, which is you know, I think anytime that Vladimir Putin considers going anywhere outside of a very close trusted ally he thinks he's going to possibly be in big trouble, and he is. So he's got to be very It's not simply just a political decision or otherwise. It's something it's his personal, uh,
you know, safety, His personal security might be compromised. But I think beyond that, he's also got his hands full, you know, in the context while we you know, while we get the official version of you know, the Russia Ukraine War and everything else, the Russian economy is not doing particularly well.
There's a lot.
Of descent within Russia, which is basically his response is to crush everything and to crush that descent. That's not a sustainable strategy over the long term. So I think Putin has has a lot more hot potatoes on his hands than bricks. And if you notice, he's sent his you know, unfairly senior officials that spoke out. But yes, I think he's a prisoner of his own making.
Yeah, that's what it seems like to me. All right.
So we had been looking, we'd heard the threat from Trump about the tariffs, the additional tariffs. Now we've got the breaking news that dropped a short while ago. Do you get the sense, Deale, that the threat of these tariffs will be a deterrent to any people or any countries that want to do business with the brigs block. I do know that's the intention, But do you think it will act as a deterrent.
I think it could, in some circumstances act as a sort of a somewhat of a barrier or, as you mentioned, a deterrent, But I don't think it's going to be sustainable. And the reason why I say that is because the one thing about global trade is is that if the post World War two period has taught us anything is
that it does not respect ideological boundaries. In other words, I mean, even when there was the Cold War, you know, and that was probably the biggest sort of twenty thirty years of camps, you know, and so you know, you didn't deal with the Soviet Union if you were in the West, and so forth and so on, and yet
they're always found ways. So I think, you know, countries will trade where there it's the it's in their benefit if they think the better deal to go with the United States, and Trump can't just issue threats he's got to offer something. So that's the other side. There's two sides to trade. You can't just threaten and threaten and threaten, because what is he going to do Invade every country he's going to cut off? I mean, this is again
not a sustainable strategy and he knows this. A lot of it is bluff, but he's got to offer it. So what is Trump offering? What is Trump offering these countries? If he says, don't deal with China, don't deal with India, well what can the United States offer you? And with
that side of it is very thin. So for right now, yes, people might be sort of thinking twice about doing something, But in the longer term, the threats are not going to hold water, I don't think, because economics will triumph over politics in that sense.
Yeah.
And do you get the sense that that I mean, with Trump really seeming like he's panicking. Yeah, it seems like a move of panic at least to me. Do you get the sense that bricks is now achieving exactly what it was meant to be to do you know the almost challenging Western dominance?
Well, I'm not so sure that it's it's at that point the yet because bricks is a very very how should we say, complicated partnership, and especially now that all these different countries have been brought on board as sort of secondary members, it's got a serious serious issues around. So it's it talks a good game in many cases, So let's talk let's say.
For example, de doollarization and the currency.
And the Development Bank. Now they are playing a particular kind of role, but China and India and Russia in this case also have some very very serious deficits and you know, other countries. If you want to be a counterweight to what you're saying is the Western you know, dominance, well then you've got to offer countries things that are going to be better. And that means not only economically
but also politically. A dictatorship is not a sustainable strategy politically for a long period of time, smashing your people and crushing your people and basically jailing any dissenters and simply saying that economics all counts, that's not a sustainable strategy either. So bricks has got to grapple, and different countries of the Bricks have got to grapple with more than just saying we want to be an economic counterweight to the United States and to the West and the
G seven. They've got to be a developmental counterweight, and that means politics, economics, and social side of things. And they're far from doing that yet.
And what's keeping them from attaining that isn't their own personal internal politics. We know what the addition of the bricks plus members that last year. Things haven't always been rosy.
No, I mean, let's again, let's be honest about this.
In many cases, while we talk, there's a good game talking multilateralism, multilateralism, but oftentimes the decisions that India makes, the decisions that Russia makes, are decisions based upon their own interest what they consider to be at least the ruling governments or class there are considered to be in their national interest, not in the interests Russia. Is not making decisions necessarily based upon what they think is good
for Russia and China and India and vice versa. So this is the thing about nationalism, is that uh and and national interests is that oftentimes it trumps and that the pun is intended. Uh. You know, the the the side, the other side of things, which is of course, this desire to offer a sort of international multilateral alternative. And so I think bricks is is very incipient. It's there's
so many contradictions. And let me just give you one from our own continent where we have a situation where what members African members now who are joining BRICKS new countries, uh, you know, Uganda, Ethiopia, from other kinds of countries there are as oftentimes even at war with each other, you know, over trade and other kinds of things. So this is the problem is you can be part of it, just
like the United Nations. You can be part of an international body, but that doesn't mean that it deals with all of the different local and national problems that you experience and in our case on our continent either.
And i'd imagine some of the themes of the summit are informed by those internal squbbles.
No, absolutely, And just I was reading through the final statement, which had one hundred and forty different points to it.
I think it was covering everything under the sun. And if you go.
Through all of that, what they're trying to do is they're trying to create and understandably so a picture of sort of you know, we're paying attention to everything from climate change to it to artificial intelligence, to you know, monetary policy, to currency speculations, all sorts of other kinds of things.
But as as you mentioned.
In the national context, the interests of those who control the national economies, let's say South African corporate capital, might not be what's in the interests of other countries corporate
capital either, and they're actually competitors. And so this we're at an early early stage, I think within the bricks sort of developmental game, should we say, where they're trying to present themselves as something, but they're working out all the different modalities, and I don't think that we're going to see in the next while that coming together in any kind of sort of way where we can say bricks rivals some of the other international institutions or is
able is going to be able to present a real alternative. I think what you're going to see in the shorter term is you're going to see a lot more contradictions playing themselves out with the attempts to try to look at the bigger picture things and for China and India in particular to play the leading role in doing so.
Yeah, you know, Africans are they've were responding to the president being at the Brick Summit in very interesting ways. I've been going through social media, Dale, and I've been reading what people are saying under the pictures that the president will post. You know, if you're on social media
platform X and then you'll see the president. They'll be duck snippets of him there, and you know, his participation being posted here and there, and under one particular post yesterday, he of course it was about his participation at the summit. And so the Africans were under the comments they're saying, hey, the country is burning. We've got him Kanazi here making these allegations, you know, against your minister. Come back. We don't care about what you're doing. The things are more
important here. And I found that to be really interesting, Dale, because I think the sense now that's the Africans are having is the country is really going through a lot here. The problems are here more than anywhere else.
Yes, you're gonna I certainly think that that is true. You know, it's it's in many cases, you know, political leaders often everywhere, in order to get away from domestic problems, they travel, they go internationally and the attend conferences and they want to be on that platform. So one, I think the critique is well taken in that context. But at the same time, there are many other South Africans that do understand that our domestic problems are linked to international.
Issues as well.
So yes, while we definitely, I mean the issues within SAPs are our problems, there are clearly ones that have to be sorted out and they're concerned to every single South African as they should be, and they should be of serious being taken very very seriously. On the other hand, those issues around for example, corruption or let's say criminal
syndicates that are being raised are international as well. Our borders are the the ports, the issues of how we have become a transit for international drug trades and syndicates as well. So these things are not necessarily disconnected. But it's understood that oftentimes when we're having very serious problems. I mean, here in my own city of Johannesburg, we've been with that water for the last week in my neighborhood because of things, and so these are very real,
real issues that people should take seriously. But once again, I think most of us do understand that if we're going to deal with our domestic problems in the longer term. We also have to deal with our international ones too.
Yeah, perhaps that may be an opportunity for the President to have a conversation or two with these counterparts there from Brazil. Maybe after the allegations that we're making yesterday by Mukuanasi, I think, you know, Dale to speak to the South African out there that may be wondering is this worth it? I mean, at this stage, it seems being part of this block from the announcement today from the US may be costing us, but other rewards that we are reaping from being part of bricks worth it.
Look, that's a difficult question answer.
I think it's a bit premature to make a real definitive answer to that. All I can say is this. I can say that, you know, South Africa is if we pivot towards let's say the East a bit more, as we have been doing in some ways economically with China and otherwise, then you've got to make sure that that is also in your own interest. So in other words, you don't want to swap one bully for another.
You don't want to.
Swap one you know, saying okay, well, if we get rid of the United States, and that's where you know, we were moving towards China, where you're experiencing some of the same kinds of things. So I think it's going to have to be a much more nuanced, much more sophisticated kind of policy. And this is what we've been crying out for in South Africa, both domestically and internationally, is we need to try our own way, and that
means sometimes you have different kinds of friends. You don't have to put all your eggs in one basket, you don't have to sort of say that you're with that in order to be able to spite the other person. Our world is is truly, you know, interdependent in many ways, and I think South Africa is going to We do have an important role to play, even if a minor one relative to some of the larger economies.
And the political powers, but it is an important one nonetheless.
And I think if our political leadership in our country is going to be serious about traveling and finding that path, we're going to have to take a little bit from every aspect. So, yes, bricks can be useful in some particular aspects and trade, but also relationships with Europe and the United States are also important as they are within our own regional economies, let's not forget our own continent, in our own regional trade blocks and other things. So
these are presenting us with opportunities. The question is will we grasp them or not?
And I think a.
Final one from me Dale, I mean, the summit is over and the president must come back to the country.
Now back to South Africa.
Now do you believe that the summit was a successful one in Rio?
I don't think you could call it a success.
I mean the fact that it was held, in the fact that you didn't you see any major sort of you know, blow ups or anything. I guess in that sense of success. But I think success to be measured. And this is the reason why these summits oftentimes are really not practically oriented.
They're about appearance.
They're about presenting united front there, about big long statements and saying everybody is on board. But it's going to be what happens afterwards. All these task teams, all these committees, all these things that they're going to dive deep into into each of the sectors. That's going to make, you know, basically going to determine whether or not this summit or the next one I mean yearly summits. You can't expect a summit to really produce anything by itself, but if the summits.
Whether this one or future ones.
Can basically begin to lay foundations that are going to benefit us economically and benefit us in other ways, not just us, but our neighbors as well. And let's remember that we are not an island, and so when we talk about South Africa, we're also talking about our neighbors. And if our neighbors are in trouble, then we're in trouble as we all, as we clearly have been experiencing. So in that context, I think it's too early to say,
but let's put it this way. Trump has made it a bit easier for the bricks to come together and to at least make the.
Appearance of a degree of unity.
The proof is going to be in the way in which that unity is practicalized going forward.
Though, Dale McKinley, thank you so much for your insights.
I really appreciate the conversation we've.
Had come What's has been my pleasure. Thank you so much.
All right, that was Dale.
It was Dale McKinley and the Independent Economist helping us make sense of the Bricks Summit twenty twenty five. He's also been excellent in his analysis on the latest decision breaking news coming out from the United States, those thirty percent tariffs on all South African product