I wish I could find another source to confirm this, but if true, that’s basically the nuclear option to kick out all American companies and halt all mineral exports to the US.
I wish I could find another source to confirm this, but if true, that’s basically the nuclear option to kick out all American companies and halt all mineral exports to the US.
I’d be pretty skeptical of this. As you said, no one else is reporting what would be huge news. I can’t find the quote attributed to “a spokesperson for the South African government” anywhere else either. There isn’t a named person in the article. This source seems sketchy, though I can’t find any bias monitor info on them. That ‘from the desk of the president’ graphic is also just kinda weird.
The closest to this story I can find is this Feb 3rd story from a mining conference:
That graphic is indeed very strange and a massive red flag.
This is almost certainly some sort of clickbait farm.
Yeah I agree. I came across the article as I like to read up on what’s going on with BRICS countries as that seems like something worth keeping an eye on. But the lack of confirmation is troublesome. Even something like a giant trade deal with China that would give them some standing to call Trump’s bluff would lend some credibility. It could be that this was threatened during negotiations and someone jumped the gun to say it’s now policy? If I see any more about it one way or another, I will update the post.
Found 5 sources
Links or it didn’t happen
https://lemmy.nz/post/19315821/13640880 I have no idea how to do a relative URL maybe: like this?
They posted above/below.
Edit: they appear to be crap.
They are indeed crap. The Reuters link isn’t even about this.
From SA’s perspective, this would be get in front of cameras and pound your chest news, not get an unnamed spokesperson to whisper about it to some unknown reporter news. Like, why would you want to dramatically punch back… but keep it low key? Makes no sense.