South Africa will use the week-long delay in the US’s imposition of 30-percent tariffs to negotiate hard to avoid the penalty and save jobs, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday.

South Africa is among nearly 70 countries facing President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on exports that were due to come into force on Friday but were delayed at the last minute until August 7.

The United States is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner after China and the central bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, has estimated the new tariffs could cost the economy around 100,000 jobs.

“Within the window that’s still open, we’re hoping that we will find a way to settle this matter,” Ramaphosa told journalists. “So intensive negotiations are now under way,” he said.

READ ALSO: Heathrow Unveils £49bn Expansion Plan For Third Runway

“Our task is to negotiate as strongly and as hard as we can with the United States,” he said. “Our objective, really, is to save jobs.”

South Africa’s agriculture and automotive sectors will be most hard-hit by 30-percent tariffs, which would pile pressure on a high unemployment rate of more than 30 percent in the continent’s most industrialised nation.

While negotiating with Washington, Pretoria also wants to boost other export markets “because it is too risky just to focus on one”, Ramaphosa said.

South Africa’s offer to the United States includes importing its liquefied natural gas and some US agricultural products, the trade ministry said this week.

South African firms have also committed to investing in US mining and metals-recycling industries and to pursuing joint investment in critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and agri-machinery, it said.

AFP