SOUTH AFRICA · GEOPOLITICS

A closer Brazil South Africa trade relationship is being negotiated around a shared problem: American tariffs on both economies. Meeting in Pretoria, the two governments named trade, critical minerals, manufacturing and technology as the ground for deeper work, and quietly left their poultry and sugar disputes for another day.

The Union Buildings in Pretoria, seat of the South African government. The eighth joint commission with Brazil met in the city in late August.

What the Brazil South Africa trade talks actually cover

The eighth session of the South Africa-Brazil Joint Commission met in Pretoria in late August, co-chaired by international relations minister Ronald Lamola and Brazilian foreign minister Mauro Vieira. Business Day reported on 27 August that the two sides set out trade, critical minerals, manufacturing and technology as the areas where the relationship should grow.

The meeting reviewed the existing stack of bilateral agreements and memorandums rather than signing a new one. Brazil also sent a multisectoral trade mission to South Africa to look for openings.

Both governments framed the exercise as moving beyond a commodity relationship. The stated aim is to raise the value of what they exchange, not only the volume.

Why now: two tariff shocks, one response

South Africa spent much of the past year under a 30% United States tariff on many of its exports, the steepest rate applied to any country on the continent, before a partial reversal earlier this year. Brazil was hit in July 2026 with a 25% tariff on most imports.

The measures against Brazil were tied to Washington’s objections to the domestic prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, which Brasília rejects as political. Vieira described the tariffs on both countries as political in nature.

That shared exposure is the engine of the current warmth. Both governments have been hunting for markets that do not depend on American goodwill.

South Africa has been busy elsewhere too. In August, India agreed to ease long-standing plant-health barriers on South African citrus after nearly a decade of talks, opening a market of roughly 1.5 billion people.

The numbers that complicate the romance

The trade balance leans heavily towards Brazil. South Africa exported R5.2bn worth of goods to Brazil in 2025 and imported R27.3bn, according to figures published by Business Leadership South Africa on 31 August.

The two economies also overlap more than they complement each other. Both have sizeable automotive, mining, agro-processing, renewable energy, chemicals and pharmaceutical industries.

That overlap is why the poultry and sugar disputes matter. Brazil is a far larger producer of both, and South African growers have argued for years that cheap imports are undercutting them.

Trade between the two currently runs under the preferential agreement between the Southern African Customs Union and Mercosur, which has been in force since 2016. Many goods still fall outside its preference rules.

A domestic critic asks for the arithmetic first

Writing on 31 August, BLSA chief executive Busi Mavuso welcomed the diplomacy but questioned the sequence. She noted that the process was led by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation rather than the trade department, which she read as a sign that the conversation was political before it was economic.

Her central objection is evidential. No serious modelling of the bilateral supply response has been published, she wrote, and that analysis should be commissioned and made public before any deeper agreement is advanced.

She contrasted the Brazil relationship with South Africa’s economic partnership agreement with the United Kingdom. On her figures, South Africa imported R117.8bn from the UK in the reference year and exported R179.1bn, a surplus of R61.3bn, under an arrangement that does not require immediate reciprocity.

The wider point is that South Africa has signed no new free-trade agreement since the British one. Negotiations with India have run for years without a result.

Minerals, medicines and the South-South pitch

Lamola put critical minerals at the centre of the opportunity, arguing that demand for the metals needed for the energy transition is likely to increase fourfold by 2040. His warning was that both regions risk repeating the old pattern in which the Global South ships raw material and the value is captured elsewhere.

Vieira pointed to science, technology and innovation, naming space science, ocean research and healthcare. Brazil said it was ready to deepen co-operation on vaccine production and local health manufacturing, a priority for both governments since the pandemic.

Agriculture and food security are expected to form part of the expanded relationship as well. Both ministers also framed the partnership as a lever in multilateral forums, where they want a larger role for developing economies.

What to watch from here

The practical test is whether anything moves from the communique into a signed instrument. A Mercosur-SACU upgrade, or a bilateral arrangement on minerals processing, would be the first real evidence.

The second test is domestic. If Pretoria advances a broader deal without publishing the supply-response analysis its own business lobby is asking for, the poultry and sugar arguments will return with force.

For readers in Latin America, the interesting part is directional. Brazil is being treated in Pretoria not as a distant commodity supplier but as an industrial partner, and that reframing is what would make the relationship durable.

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