South Africa exports vehicles worth about $1.9 billion every year, many to the United States under a trade deal now in jeopardy as President Donald Trump piles pressure on the country. Motor vehicles account for 22 percent of South Africa's exports to the United States,

Trump said South Africa was pursuing what he called "unjust and immoral practices" against the white minority Afrikaner community and by filing a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke with Donald Trump's “influential” billionaire adviser Elon Musk a day after the new U.S. president promised to cut funding for South Africa over a land expropriation law,