Cape Town, Mar 13 (AP) Senior European Union officials were in South Africa for a summit Thursday with President Cyril Ramaphosa that centres on bolstering trade and diplomatic ties as both feel the impact of the Trump administration's confrontational foreign policy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa will meet with Ramaphosa at his Cape Town office in the first EU-South Africa summit since 2018.

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The focus of the 27-nation bloc will switch to its biggest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa after the European Union (EU) announced retaliatory tariffs against Washington in response to US President Donald Trump's new duties on steel and aluminium.

The summit in South Africa will “explore new avenues for economic, trade and investment cooperation, as well as address any challenges and trade irritants,” the European Council said.

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South Africa has been singled out for sanctions by the Trump administration over some domestic and foreign policies that the US leader has cast as anti-American.

Trump issued an executive order last month cutting all US funding to South Africa, accusing it of a human rights violation against a white minority group in the country, and of supporting some “bad actors” in the world like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.

Von der Leyen's visit will also likely re-emphasize the EU's support for South Africa's presidency of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations this year, another area where the US has criticised South Africa while boycotting some early G20 meetings.

South Africa hopes to use its leadership of the group to make progress on help for poor countries, especially on debt relief and more financing to mitigate the impact of climate change.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed some of those priorities for the G20 and skipped a foreign ministers meeting of the group in South Africa last month. He also said that he wouldn't attend the main G20 summit in Johannesburg in November, indicating that the US would give little attention to attempts at international cooperation through the bloc, which includes 19 of the world's major economies, the EU and the African Union.

Rubio is attending talks with other top diplomats from the Group of Seven industrialised democracies in Canada starting Thursday.

The EU said that von der Leyen would use the meeting in South Africa to announce a new investment package that uses public and private grants and loans to finance green energy projects in South Africa, improve transport infrastructure like railways and ports, and strengthen its vaccine production capacity.

The US withdrew this month from an agreement that gave funding to South Africa and two other developing nations to help them transition to clean energy sources. The EU has also pledged money to that Just Energy Transition Partnership and said that it's still committed to the programme.

“My message: Europe values its partnership with South Africa,” von der Leyen said in a statement before the meeting with Ramaphosa. (AP)

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