Balance of Power

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is burdened with a fractious coalition and a stagnant economy.

But his biggest problem right now is Donald Trump.

Thirty percent tariffs on many goods South Africa ships to the US, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, have made a leader who staked his political reputation on negotiation skills look powerless.

Trump berated him in an Oval Office meeting and American negotiators have disregarded South African trade offers.

Ramaphosa has tried to keep his relationship with Trump civil even as other targets like Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been defiant.

It hasn't paid off.

Lula won a popularity bump; Ramaphosa and his ANC-led administration are accused by political rivals of incompetence.

Ramaphosa can’t be blamed for Trump’s caprice, but there’s a sense that his party’s foreign-policy chickens have come home to roost.

Ramaphosa and Trump in the Oval Office on May 21. Photographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The ANC has long pretended that its closeness to Russia and Iran is divorced from economic relations with its biggest investors, the US and the European Union. Its international court case against Israel was a red rag to US politicians.

Now Ramaphosa is looking for new trade partners in Africa and Asia. But Africa is a market for goods that are cheaper than the cars and top-grade oranges the US buys, and it’ll take years of talks to win access to more Asian markets.

Ramaphosa knows the quarrel with Trump is political, not commercial. That leaves him little room to maneuver.

In one of the world’s most unequal nations, he can’t scrap the Black economic-empowerment rules the US says are racial discrimination. And there’s little he can do to counter Trump’s accusations he’s presiding over a genocide of White farmers — because it’s not true.

But that’s going to be hard to explain to the tens of thousands of South Africans whose jobs are on the line. — Antony Sguazzin

Operations at a citrus farm in South Africa on June 4. Photographer: Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg

Global Must Reads

Trump declared plans for a 100% tariff on semiconductor imports while promising to exempt companies that move production back to the US, triggering a scramble among trading partners and companies worldwide to make sense of the threat. Meanwhile, Switzerland’s exports now face one of the highest rates in the world after its government failed in its last-ditch effort to get the levies reduced.

The US president said he could punish China with additional duties over its purchases of Russian oil, though one of his top advisers played down the likelihood of the White House following through on the threat. Trump floated the possibility after doubling tariffs on Indian goods for buying energy from Moscow, escalating a fight with a key Asian partner and sparking outrage in New Delhi.

As pictures of malnourished Gazans flood world media, international pressure on Israel is intensifying not only to increase food supplies and end the fighting with Hamas but to accept a Palestinian state. Israel isn’t merely defying the pressure, it’s redefining itself, after evolving from a besieged secular outpost with an agrarian economy into a Middle East superpower that’s now weighing a full takeover of Gaza.

A humanitarian air drop in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on July 27. Photographer: Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet for summit talks within the next few days, the Kremlin said. Sources say the US leader is positive about prospects for a ceasefire following discussions in Moscow between Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Trump indicated he would likely nominate a temporary Federal Reserve governor to fill the soon-to-be vacant post on the central bank’s board within the coming days, rather than use the seat to signal his choice to replace Jerome Powell as chairman. Adriana Kugler announced last week that she plans to vacate her role on Aug. 8.

At least 319 people, including dozens of women and children, were killed over 12 days in July by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group that’s active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the United Nations agency for human rights.

M23 rebels in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, in February. Photographer: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/Getty Images

Myint Swe, Myanmar’s acting president and a former general sanctioned by the US for his role in a 2021 coup, died at the age of 74 from Parkinson’s disease and related neurological disorders.

Employees of Kosovo’s public broadcaster took to the streets yesterday, protesting against the months-long parliamentary deadlock that has left them in financial limbo.

Telesat, Canada’s biggest satellite company, said it can help Trump’s so-called Golden Dome missile-defense system with its Lightspeed low-earth orbit satellite fleet.

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Chart of the Day

European natural gas dipped further after Trump’s move to punish India for buying Russian crude showed no signs of threatening flows of the heating and power generation fuel. A steady build-up of the region’s reserves has helped keep concerns over supply risks at bay in recent weeks, even as the deadline Trump imposed on Russia to reach a truce with Ukraine nears.

And Finally

Since Croatia joined the EU 12 years ago, GDP per capita has almost doubled as tourism became a key driver for the economy, with adoption of the euro capping the Balkan country’s success. Yet scratch beneath the surface and there’s a malaise. The population has dropped by almost a fifth since the nation gained independence in 1991 as Yugoslavia disintegrated, and Croat leaders didn’t spend much time addressing a past that included the Nazi-supporting regime of World War II. Echoes of that past are now resurfacing with a surge in popularity of a far-right singer and the revival of Nazi-era symbols and slogans — and rather than condemn it, some politicians are embracing it.

Singer Marko Perković Thompson is one of Croatia’s biggest stars. Photographer: Damir Sencar/AFP/Getty Images

Global Must Reads

Chart of the Day

And Finally

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