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Mantashe to US: No minerals without funding

Trump concerned about 'human rights violation' in SA.

by Zahid Jadwat

No minerals without funding, says minister Gwede Mantashe. Picture: Mining Indaba

 

Gwede Mantashe, minister of mineral and petroleum resources, has suggested African countries should withhold mineral exports to the United States. This was in light of funding cuts announced by Donald Trump.


Mantashe made the remark at the opening of the 2025 Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Monday.


This was hours after the US president halted funds to SA because, he claimed, the government was “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.


“Let’s withhold minerals to the US. That is it. If they don’t give us money, let’s not give them minerals,” the minister said.

He continued: “The reality is they take our minerals, but they are withdrawing funding. We have minerals in the continent and therefore we have something that we have. We are not just beggars, but we must just use that endowment for our benefit as a continent”.

Platinum group metals make up nearly half of SA’s exports to the US. Moreover, nearly all of the US’s global chromium supply comes from SA.

Meanwhile, SA received $453 million (R8.5 billion) for crucial HIV/AIDS treatment and support through the PEPFAR programme in 2024. The new administration has put a stop to that.

Reacting to Trump’s announcement, Brooks Spector, a former US diplomat, told Newzroom Afrika: “The Trump administration really doesn’t like foreign assistance generally and this is just one more arrow in that quiver”.

He added that a lack of clarity on the recently-signed Expropriation Act, which allows for property to be taken without compensation in certain instances, may have had something to do with the funding cut.

 

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