内容摘要：The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters the young staffers were a couple “about to be engaged”.

The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters the young staffers were a couple “about to be engaged”.

Before the two leaders met on Wednesday, Ramaphosa’s office said the aim was to “reset” relations, especially as the US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner after China.“Whether we like it or not, we are joined at the hip, and we need to be talking to them,” the South African president said before his trip.

Christopher Isike, a political scientist at the University of Pretoria, told Al Jazeera that direct engagement between the leaders was important, given the tense relations between their countries.“This is an opportunity for South Africa to correct misinformation peddled by President Trump and try to reset trade relations between the two countries,” he said.Isike noted that both presidents’ backgrounds as businesspeople could provide common ground for discussing mutually advantageous deals.

“Rich friends of Ramaphosa are also rich friends of Trump, and that may have helped facilitate the meeting,” Isike added.Common ground and level heads would be useful as the leaders continued private talks away from the media on Wednesday, observers said.

Before the visit, Ramaphosa maintained that while Trump was a dealmaker, he too was adept at making deals and even joked about the possibility of playing a round of golf with his US counterpart.

Washington, however, has criticised Pretoria for a host of matters since Trump took office. This continued in the meeting on Wednesday.Moving along to the garage, again, practically everything is mostly not made in the US.

In 2024, approximately 16 million new vehicles were sold across the US. Of those, about 45 percent were from US car companies, including top manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep.The most popular vehicle sold in the US is the Ford F-Series pick-up truck, which has maintained its position as the top-selling vehicle in the US for more than four decades.

However, while these companies might have their headquarters in the US, they all outsource auto parts manufacturing or assembly to countries with lower production costs, such as Mexico, China, South Korea and Canada.The vast majority (97 percent) of bicycles sold in the US are imported, with most coming from China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia.