South Africa's worsening relations with the United States will likely result in the loss of duty-free access to the U.S. market for key industries and risk dampening investor confidence due to targeted U.S. sanctions, which may even undermine the country's civil nuclear power sector, depending on the scale and scope of U.S. pressure. On March 14, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, was ''no longer welcome'' in the country after the diplomat criticized U.S. President Donald Trump in a webinar. Rasool's expulsion came amid escalating U.S. pressure on South Africa since Trump took office on Jan. 20. On Feb. 7, Trump signed an executive order suspending all U.S. development aid to South Africa, accusing its government of subjecting white Afrikaners to ''race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.'' The order also accused the South African government of undermining...
