Inserts:

00:03 Report / Dianne Hawker
00:30 Dianne Hawker / DW Correspondent
01:02 SIPHO BATYI / COMPONENTS MANUFACTURER  
02:24 PAULINA MAMOGOBO / CHIEF ECONOMIST, NAAMSA
03:00 SIPHO BATYI / COMPONENTS MANUFACTURER

Script:

DURATION: 3:20 
LOCATION: PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA

00:00 - 00:04
These grills arrive at Sipho Batyi’s company unpainted. 
00:04 - 00:09 
The work of making them ready for cars has a certain rhythm that he likes. 
00:09 - 00:28 
His team inspects, cleans, spraypaints and then polishes them. 
It’s a precise operation and offered dependable work for his 60 employees – at least until Donald Trump announced new tariffs on vehicle imports to the United States. 

00:28 - 00:51 DIANNE HAWKER/REPORTING
PTC: These spray-painted grills are destined for the Ford assembly line. The company says ever since US president Donald Trump started talking about increasing tariffs, they’ve seen a decrease in the amount of available work. It's just one of the signs of how decisions made in Washington are affecting small businesses here, in South Africa. 
00:52 - 01:00 Although Ford South Africa doesn’t export to the US, the company and its suppliers are feeling the global impact of Trump’s policy. 
0
01:00 - 01:31 UPSOUND: SIPHO BATYI/COMPONENTS MANUFACTURER  
“If one neighbor is suffering, obviously they are not able to buy the vehicles. So what is happening now is that we supply the units, 4000 units, that is the cars they build. So all of those cars we've reduced now to 2500 units a month. So that makes a huge difference. It impacts us in terms of the cash. It impacts. Now we have to retrench. That's what it does. This, this tariff directly, that is a direct impact on us. So we feeling it.” 
01:31 - 01:43 Batyi is the provincial chairman of the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers. 
He says the group is looking for non-American alternatives.

01:43 -02:01 UPSOUND: SIPHO BATYI/ COMPONENTS MANUFACTURER 
“As I'm talking to you right now, we are busy communicating with other countries. Now we are no longer in the environment where we have to sit and relax. We are now in environment we have to be proactive and seek other partners who wants to come into the African continent.” 
As well as Ford, BMW, Toyota and Mercedes Benz also have production facilities in South Africa.  
The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers says sales to non-American markets are up - but this doesn’t cover the more than 70% drop in US sales created by the new tariffs. 

02:22 - 02:50 UPSOUND: PAULINA MAMOGOBO / NAAMSA CHIEF ECONOMIST  
“Markets like the European Union continued to take up our vehicles, growing by 23% year on year. And of course, we had the African region as well grow by 22% so you see that there is that strategic pivot. But of course, the conversation then continues to be the nature of vehicles that we were sending to the US. Can they be easily absorbed in this market? Because obviously there is diversity of vehicles that we continue to send to the different regions.”
 
02:50 - 02:58 Despite worrying about how to keep his business going,  Batyi says he sees light at the end of the Trump tariff tunnel 
02:58 -03:08 UPSOUND: “My dream is to build cars at the end of the day. So I have to continue with that, with that dream. I cannot give up now because of one person of one country. 
03:08 - 03:20 He says local parts producers should point their trucks north, to the rest of the African continent - if they are to survive the remainder of Trump’s term. END