JOHANNESBURG: The South African rand fell on Friday as traders mulled the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill and as pressure mounted on countries to secure trade deals before the United States’ July 9 deadline.
At 1251 GMT, the rand traded at 17.6250 against the dollar, roughly down 0.6% on Thursday’s close.
The U.S. Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” of spending and tax cuts.
“The upside to this bill is that it will likely boost U.S. demand in the short-to-medium term. The downside is that forecasts are pessimistic on whether it will successfully generate enough GDP growth to outpace the increased spending,” ETM Analytics said in a research note.
Like other risk-sensitive currencies, the rand often takes cues from global drivers like U.S. policy and economic data in addition to local factors.
South Africa and many other countries are scrambling to agree trade deals with the United States before the deadline.
But the U.S. leader said Washington will start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they will face on imports to the U.S., a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals.
Traders’ domestic focus will be on June foreign reserves data on Monday and May manufacturing production figures on Thursday for insight into the health of Africa’s most-industrialised economy.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s Top-40 index was last down 0.2%.
South Africa’s benchmark 2035 government bond was slightly weaker, as the yield rose 1 basis point to 9.745%.
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