US Tariffs Cut South African Car Exports by 83% in One Year

SOUTH AFRICA · BUSINESS

South African vehicle exports to the United States fell 83.2% last year, and the AGOA extension now moving through the US Congress will not bring them back. A 25% tariff imposed under Section 232 in April 2025 sits outside the trade preference altogether.

How far South African vehicle exports fell

The number is stark enough to check twice. Shipments to the United States went from 24,682 units in 2024 to 4,136 units in 2025, a fall of 83.2%.

That is one calendar year, one policy change, and a trade relationship a quarter of a century in the making. naamsa, the industry body, dates the start of meaningful US shipments to 853 units in 2000.

The decline has not stopped. On naamsa’s own half-year comparison, volumes fell a further 36% between the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2026, from 2,875 units to 1,840.

Automotive is the sector where South Africa had the most to lose. naamsa puts the industry at 23.8% of national manufacturing value added, though Stats SA’s own production index weights motor vehicles and parts far lower, at around 8.6%.

One tariff, one plant, one model

The mechanism is not complicated. Proclamation 10908, signed on 26 March 2025, applied a 25% tariff to imported automobiles from 3 April and to parts from 3 May, on national-security grounds under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.

What makes South Africa unusually exposed is concentration. naamsa’s own review says almost all the lost exports are C-Class cars built by Mercedes-Benz South Africa at East London in the Eastern Cape.

It is tempting to picture six large plants losing American orders at once, and that would be wrong. BMW’s Rosslyn plant sends its X3 to Europe and African markets and has said publicly it is not exposed to the US tariffs.

The others are simply not in the American market. Volkswagen’s Polo is not sold in the United States, Toyota’s South African Hilux has not been for decades, Isuzu’s bakkies are not either, and the US-market Ford Ranger is built in Michigan.

So the 83% is a story about one company, one model and one town. East London suspended production in June and July 2025, which is what a tariff looks like when it lands on a single-customer plant.

The AGOA extension is not law yet

This is the part most likely to be reported wrongly, so it is worth stating precisely. The US Senate passed an amended version of H.R.6500 on 8 August 2026, which would run AGOA to 31 December 2028.

The House of Representatives passed the original bill in January. It has not yet agreed to the Senate’s amendments, and the President has not signed anything.

The amendment matters as much as the vote. The Senate turned the bill into a continuing appropriations vehicle, so AGOA’s fate is now bound up with a government funding fight rather than with Africa policy.

Meanwhile the programme is not in limbo. A reauthorisation signed on 3 February 2026 runs AGOA to 31 December 2026 and was backdated to 30 September 2025, after the programme briefly lapsed.

The practical position, then, is that African exporters have certainty to the end of this year and a proposal for two more. Anyone planning capital expenditure off a 2028 date is planning off a bill.

Why duty-free access does not fix this

AGOA gives eligible African goods duty-free entry to the United States. Section 232 duties are imposed separately, on national-security grounds, and they are not waived by a trade preference.

That is why naamsa’s response to the extension was measured rather than celebratory. Gobiyeza described it as strategic breathing room while noting that the 25% duty remains the operative constraint.

For a manufacturer the arithmetic is unforgiving. A vehicle that lands 25% dearer than a comparable one built in North America does not become competitive because the paperwork is cheaper.

The distinction is easy to lose in headlines that say AGOA has been saved. Access and competitiveness are not the same thing, and only one of them was ever on the table.

A second tariff, on different goods

There is a second US measure aimed at South Africa and it works differently. Since 24 July 2026 a 12.5% duty has applied under Section 301, tied to forced-labour enforcement, as part of an action covering some 60 economies.

It does not stack on vehicles. Cars and parts remain under the 25% Section 232 regime, outside the Section 301 action.

An earlier 30% reciprocal tariff on South African goods no longer exists. The US Supreme Court struck down the reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs imposed under emergency powers in February 2026, and South Africa’s rate reverted to 10% before the Section 301 measure replaced the framing.

Keeping these straight matters for anyone modelling landed costs. Three different legal instruments have applied to South African exports in eighteen months, and only one of them touches vehicles.

What Latin American exporters will recognise

None of this is unique to South Africa. The same Section 232 logic reshaped Mexican and Brazilian shipments into the United States over the same period, and the same distinction between preference and duty applied there too.

The lesson travels well. A trade agreement protects tariff lines, not industrial policy, and a security-grounded duty can override a decade of preferential access without amending a single trade deal.

For South Africa the immediate question is whether East London’s C-Class line finds another market or another model. For the wider continent it is whether AGOA is worth planning around at all if a separate instrument can cancel its value.

The answer will not come from Washington’s calendar. It will come from whether African manufacturers can sell to buyers who are not subject to somebody else’s national-security determination.

What vehicle exports look like now

The scale of the fall is what makes this unusual. South African vehicle exports to the United States went from 24,682 units in 2024 to 4,136 in 2025.

That is not a slowdown in vehicle exports. It is a market closing, and it happened within a single tariff cycle.

Vehicle exports to other destinations have held up better. That is what has kept the plants running at all.

Germany and the rest of the European Union remain the largest customers for South African vehicle exports by value.

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