South Africa’s finance minister is under pressure to chart an economic course that navigates the hazards unleashed by Donald Trump’s trade war.

South African lab technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was waiting for the test results for a potential HIV vaccine, which has eluded scientists for decades, when the order came from USAID to stop work. The first round of vaccines she and her colleagues made in Johannesburg had produced an immune response in rabbits,

South Africa's foreign minister Ronald Lamola told Reuters on Monday that the United States had not responded to attempts to "formally engage" after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order cutting off aid to South Africa.

South Africa is preparing to dispatch a delegation of government and business leaders to Washington in an attempt to retain the country’s preferential access to the world’s largest economy — but only after similar trips to China and Europe.