By Flint Jurgens

China will allow duty-free imports of some South African products under a deal being finalised as Pretoria seeks to diversify its markets, the trade ministry said Thursday. China is South Africa's biggest trade partner by country, followed by the United States, which in August last year imposed 30 percent tariffs on some South African products.

Trade Minister Parks Tau is travelling to China to sign an agreement that "will see South African exports getting duty-free access to the Chinese market and attract investment into South Africa", the ministry said.

"This trip comes at a time when South Africa is pursuing an objective of market diversification and export growth," it added, without specifying which sectors would benefit from the duty-free deal. Tau will also meet with Chinese companies interested in investing in South Africa, it said.

China became Pretoria's largest trading partner in 2023 after overtaking the European Union, with South Africa exporting mainly minerals and agricultural products.

Pretoria has said it is trying to negotiate a better trade deal with the United States over fears its 30 percent tariffs on a range of products could cost thousands of jobs.

Tensions between the South African government and President Donald Trump's administration have blown up over the past year over a range of issues, disrupting the transatlantic relationship.

By Richard Thompson

Throughout American history, Foundational Black Americans have been positioned—deliberately and systematically—as labor rather than leadership, workers rather than owners, and participants rather than architects of the economic order. The traditional “9 to 5” has long been presented not merely as employment, but as the acceptable ceiling of aspiration. To stay within that framework was to be “realistic,” “grateful,” and “in one’s place.” To step outside of it—especially by building independent businesses—has increasingly marked Foundational Black Americans as something far more disruptive: modern-day revolutionaries.

This revolution does not arrive with weapons or marches, but with LLCs, proprietary technology, intellectual property, logistics networks, and independent consumer ecosystems. And precisely because it threatens long-standing hierarchies, it is met with resistance from both outside and within the culture.


Entrepreneurship as a Revolutionary Act

For Foundational Black Americans, quitting a 9-to-5 job to start a business is not a neutral decision. It is a political, cultural, and economic statement. It signals a refusal to accept generationally inherited limitations and an insistence on agency in a system designed to extract labor rather than reward ownership.

In other communities, entrepreneurship is celebrated as ambition. For FBAs, it is often framed as arrogance, risk-taking without discipline, or unrealistic dreaming. This discrepancy reveals a deeper truth: the American economy has grown accustomed to Black productivity without Black autonomy.

When Foundational Black Americans create businesses—particularly outside of the narrow lanes historically “approved” for them—they challenge a racialized economic script that has been in place for centuries.


The Approved Lanes: Entertainment, Sports, and Service

One of the clearest indicators of this script is where Black success is culturally permitted. Sports, entertainment, and food services are widely accepted arenas for Black excellence because they do not fundamentally disrupt power structures. These industries rely on performance rather than ownership, visibility rather than control, and individual success rather than systemic leverage.

A Black athlete or entertainer can earn millions while the infrastructure—teams, labels, distribution networks, financial systems—remains firmly in non-Black hands. This model allows admiration without fear.

By contrast, when Foundational Black Americans enter fields like technology, manufacturing, finance, logistics, agriculture, energy, or real estate development—especially as owners—they are no longer merely visible. They are powerful.


And power is where the discomfort begins.

Economic Gatekeeping and Buyer–Consumer Lockout

One of the most common responses to FBA innovation is economic isolation. Foundational Black American entrepreneurs frequently find themselves locked out of buyer ecosystems that are otherwise open to similarly situated non-Black businesses.

This lockout takes many forms:

• Difficulty accessing capital despite strong fundamentals
• Exclusion from supplier and vendor networks
• Algorithmic suppression on digital platforms
• Gatekeeping in licensing, zoning, and regulation
• Token inclusion without meaningful contracts

The result is a paradox: Black-owned businesses are encouraged rhetorically, but structurally denied the scale necessary to compete.

This is not accidental. Buyer ecosystems determine who survives. When Foundational Black Americans begin to build businesses that could support independent Black economies, they threaten a system that relies on Black dollars flowing outward, not circulating inward.


“Uppity” and the Punishment of Ambition

On the other end of the spectrum, entrepreneurial FBAs are often labeled “uppity,” “difficult,” or “not team players.” These labels are not new. They are modern echoes of older social controls used whenever Black ambition exceeded what was socially sanctioned.

To be “uppity” is simply to behave as if one has the right to self-determination.

This criticism does not come only from outside cultures. It also emerges internally, where decades of economic trauma and conditioned survival strategies can cause innovation to be viewed with suspicion. When a Foundational Black American steps outside the working-class mold, it can unsettle those who have learned to equate safety with conformity.

But revolutions are rarely comfortable, even for those they are meant to liberate.


Fear as the Underlying Driver

At its core, the resistance to Foundational Black American entrepreneurship is driven by fear.

Fear of competition.
Fear of independence.
Fear of cultural self-definition.
Fear of a future where Black Americans are not merely contributors to the economy, but shapers of it.

History provides context for this fear. When Black people have had access to ownership, land, and enterprise—whether in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Rosewood, or other prosperous Black communities—the response has often been violent destruction or legal sabotage. Modern resistance is quieter, more bureaucratic, and more deniable, but it serves the same purpose: containment.


Remembering Our Civilizational Genius

What makes this moment particularly powerful is that Foundational Black Americans are not discovering innovation for the first time—they are reclaiming it.

Long before the transatlantic slave trade, African civilizations demonstrated mastery of engineering, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, and economics. The monumental achievements of ancient societies—the pyramids of Kemet, the universities of Timbuktu, the wealth and global influence of Mansa Musa’s Mali—stand as historical evidence of Black genius expressed at scale.

These were not accidents. They were the results of organized knowledge, long-term planning, and economic sovereignty. The fear surrounding modern FBA entrepreneurship is, in many ways, a fear of that memory returning—not as myth, but as lived reality.


A New Revolution Without Permission

Today’s Foundational Black American entrepreneurs are not asking for permission. They are building parallel systems, creating direct-to-consumer models, developing proprietary platforms, and prioritizing community circulation over external validation.

They understand that the revolution does not come from inclusion into existing systems, but from the creation of new ones.

This shift marks a profound cultural evolution. It reframes success not as proximity to power, but as ownership of it. Not as representation, but as control.


And that is precisely why it is resisted.

Conclusion: Taking the Bull by the Horns

Foundational Black Americans who leave the 9-to-5 to build businesses are not deviating from the path—they are returning to it. They are reconnecting with a legacy of innovation that predates oppression and refusing to accept a future defined by limitation. The discomfort their success creates is not a flaw; it is evidence of impact.

Every business launched, every ecosystem built, and every economic boundary crossed brings the world closer to seeing what has always been true: that Foundational Black American genius does not need permission, validation, or containment. It needs space, resources, and the courage to take the bull by the horns.

This is not just entrepreneurship.

It is remembrance.
It is resistance.
It is revolution.