“We’re Playing A Delicate Game Here”: China Pressuring African Nations Over US Trade Deals

Authored by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

JOHANNESBURG—Diplomats and officials from several leading African economies say the United States and China are pressuring them to make an “impossible choice,” as the superpowers fight a trade war that threatens to erode weak economies further.

Senior members of African governments, including those of South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria, said Beijing has warned them it will retaliate against countries that sign trade agreements with the United States “at China’s expense.”

U.S. trade partners, including many from Africa, are currently negotiating with President Donald Trump’s administration following his global tariff announcement on April 2.

They’re trying to work out deals that could see the tariffs scrapped or lowered, depending on what they’re able to offer the White House.

Trump imposed some of the highest duties on African imports, ranging in some cases between 30 and 50 percent, arguing these are necessary to correct trade imbalances that take advantage of the United States.

He said the reciprocal tariffs will increase America’s competitive edge, protect its sovereignty, and strengthen its national and economic security.

But high taxes on their exports to the United States will cut billions of dollars from budgets already strained by high debt, inflation, the cost of industrializing, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, said African nations.

Countries like Lesotho, hit with a tariff of 50 percent on its exports to the United States, which it said could destroy its textile industry, and South Africa (31 percent), have welcomed the chance to talk with the United States.

“But we know that if we do anything that is seen as appeasing Trump, it won’t go down well back east,” a government official in Pretoria told The Epoch Times, speaking anonymously because he didn’t have permission to speak with the media.

“We’re playing a delicate game here,” he said. “Because of Trump’s tariffs and the economic hardship they’re going to cause us, we’re trying to form new trade partnerships, but we know China is not going to be happy with some of those partnerships, especially if we move economically closer to their biggest enemy. Part of our strategy is to do even more trade with China, but then Trump is going to see that as a betrayal. We cannot win. It’s an impossible choice.”

Kenyan and Nigerian diplomats, who requested anonymity for the same reason, said Chinese officials had warned their governments not to give in to what Beijing has described as “bullying” by the Trump administration.

The Nigerian envoy told The Epoch Times that “the Chinese made it clear they expect Africans to be on their side” in this trade war.

“They said their government will strike back against anyone that signs anything with the United States that hurts [Beijing],” the Nigerian official said.

China’s Ministry of Commerce recently issued a statement in a vein similar to the comments made by the African officials.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” the ministry said. “If this happens, China will never accept it and will resolutely take countermeasures in a reciprocal manner.”

Ina Gouws, political scientist at the University of Free State in South Africa, told The Epoch Times that China’s threat to retaliate has brought African countries to a “crossroads.”

“We now have the world’s two biggest economic powers involving the rest of the world, and particularly Africa, where China has held sway for decades, in their spectacular trade war,” she said. “What does Africa now do? It can’t please two masters. African countries cannot afford to lose trade with either America or China. They have always been adamant that they need trade with both. But Trump and [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping] have forced them into a corner, and there seems to be no good way out of this for Africa.”