US visa restrictions strain South Africa relations
Brooks Spector, retired US diplomat and associate editor at Daily Maverick, discusses who is affected by the individual visa restrictions, the US-SA trade surplus and how the government is likely to respond.
The United States has imposed individual visa restrictions on South African nationals, adding a further point of friction to an already strained bilateral relationship. The measure sits alongside a US-South Africa trade relationship in which the US runs a surplus, giving Washington limited economic incentive to escalate beyond targeted, individual-level penalties. Pretoria is likely to respond through diplomatic channels rather than retaliatory trade measures, given its dependence on continued access to the US market under AGOA and other preferential arrangements.
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