02/09/2026
Open Letter to Amazon:
Remove Race from Your Support Programme
Dear Amazon,
The U.S. government rightly regards South Africa’s race-based policies as a barrier to trade.
One of the five key asks of the Trump administration is that race-based requirements imposed on American companies be removed.
Solidarity supports this position.
Yet Amazon, an American corporate giant, is going even further than South African law itself requires.
Only companies that are 100% black-owned qualify for one of Amazon’s support programmes in South Africa.
Any white shareholding disqualifies a company from participating in the programme.
Amazon calls this racially exclusive programme “diversity”.
There is a glaring contradiction here: while the U.S. government is fighting against trade barriers created by race-based policies, Amazon is imposing draconian racial restrictions on companies seeking to do business with it in South Africa.
Exclusion based on race is not diversity.
We therefore call on Amazon to remove race from its support programme. Racial exclusion is morally indefensible.
Dr Dirk Hermann�Chief Executive: Solidarity
