G20 trade ministers meet in Milwaukee as Trump tariffs split the world's biggest economies
South Africa, which joined the G20's African Union pillar, is not named in the US tariff rounds, but the disputes being argued in Wisconsin shape the trade rules that govern its exports.
Trade ministers from the Group of 20 major economies open two days of talks in Milwaukee on Wednesday, in meetings strained by United States tariffs and a widening dispute over industrial overcapacity that analysts expect to end without agreement.
As eNCA reported on 30 September, the gathering brings officials from 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union to the Midwestern US city, with Washington holding the rotating G20 presidency.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the administration’s approach at a roundtable in Milwaukee on Tuesday, saying it “is not anti-trade” and that countries face shared challenges with global overcapacity and what he called non-market policies.
That defence lands against a year of escalating duties. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on trading partners since last year, separately targeting sectors including steel and autos. The Supreme Court struck down the country-specific tariffs in February. Washington has since alleged insufficient action against forced labour to justify new tariffs on 60 economies, among them China, India and the European Union. Sectoral duties remain in place, and 16 partners are under investigation over excess industrial capacity, a complaint most often aimed at China.
Analysts quoted by AFP do not expect the Milwaukee meetings to resolve any of it. Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council noted Trump’s preference for bilateral negotiations. Wendy Cutler, a former US trade official now at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said partners would be anxious to cooperate with the world’s largest economy while under pressure to voice their concerns about the tariffs. She expects some countries to “mince no words” about the overcapacity investigation, feeling they are being unfairly targeted.
Cutler also expects China to keep denying that it exports overproduction, arguing instead that it supplies high-quality goods at low prices. She called that “a hard sell” as countries absorb employment and commercial fallout from waves of Chinese imports. Lipsky added that members are weighing how much to agree with the current administration when US trade policy could change after the 2028 presidential election.
Canada and the European Union are expected to push for deeper trade ties outside the United States. Canada’s international trade minister, Maninder Sidhu, stressed Ottawa’s support for “open, predictable and rules-based trade” and said he plans to speak with partners to reinforce a multilateral trading system. India could finalise a long-awaited trade deal with Washington.
Outside the meeting rooms, workers and activists are protesting what they see as broken US promises on conditions for workers, farmers and smaller businesses. John Drew, who chairs the political arm of the United Auto Workers union in Wisconsin, said the sweeping use of tariffs has done nothing to bring back jobs or rebuild manufacturing in the state.
For South African readers, the Milwaukee deadlock is not a distant argument. The African Union sits at the G20 table as a permanent member, and South Africa is the AU’s largest economy. The rules under debate, on tariffs, on industrial capacity, on what counts as a fair export, are the same rules that determine whether South African steel, vehicles, citrus and wine enter the world’s richest market on predictable terms.
That is the practical stake. When the world’s largest economy decides that a trading partner has not done enough on forced labour, or that its exports are unfairly subsidised, the response is a duty at the border. It is paid by the exporter, and it lands in the price a buyer sees. South African exporters have lived through that arithmetic before, most visibly in the long-running poultry and steel disputes, and they price it into contracts.
The immediate risk in Milwaukee is not a new tariff aimed at South Africa. The source material names no South African measure, and none should be assumed. The risk is structural. A G20 that cannot agree on the terms of trade leaves decisions to bilateral deals between Washington and individual capitals. Countries with the negotiating weight to strike those deals quickly will do so. Smaller economies wait, and their exporters absorb whatever terms arrive.
That is why the South African position at forums like this is consistent and on the record. Pretoria has argued for rules-based multilateral trade through the World Trade Organization and for the African Continental Free Trade Area as a route to diversify away from any single market. The AU’s G20 seat, secured in 2023, gives the continent a voice in exactly these discussions that it did not have when the last tariff wars were fought.
What the two days in Milwaukee will produce is, on the analysts’ own expectation, process rather than breakthrough. The United States will press its case on forced labour and overcapacity. China will reject the overcapacity charge. Canada and the EU will look for partners elsewhere. And the officials who set the rules that South African exporters live under will leave without having settled them.
Source: eNCA, G20 trade officials meet under shadow of tariffs, overcapacity.
