President Cyril Ramaphosa may have to take a page out of his predecessor Thabo Mbeki's book in how he will tackle tensions between Pretoria and Washington in the weeks to come.
This is according to some of Ramaphosa's allies within the ANC and in the Union Buildings, who told TimesLIVE Premium that the “Trump problem” requires a political solution.
Ramaphosa has found himself in the middle of growing tensions as US President Donald Trump makes South Africa a focal point.
Paramount for the Trump administration, ANC heavyweights agree, are tensions between South Africa and Israel.
It was not long after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House that Trump issued an executive order against South Africa.
Diplomats, former ambassadors and academics who spoke to TimesLIVE Premium all agreed that Trump's reasons for the executive order were not centred on the Expropriation Act, but rather South Africa's stance on the Israeli war against the people of Palestine.
The order issued by Trump states the US will not provide aid or assistance to South Africa; and the US would promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored, race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.
In response to this executive order, Ramaphosa announced during the state of the nation address that he would deploy envoys to the US and countries of interest to South Africa. This delegation would be tasked with explaining the country's domestic and international policy positions. It would also interact with key players on a variety of matters that affect South Africa’s interests.
“The work we do and what we stand for needs to be explained to many key players, especially to our trading partners and the many countries and leaders we interact with on the global stage,” said Ramaphosa.
While many in and out of Ramaphosa's party have suggested some of the key figures who must feature on his list of trusted envoys, insiders said the main players would likely include politicians as the issues surrounding South Africa and its key trading ally, the US, were not centred on commercial interests.
One former diplomat and ANC veteran said Ramaphosa must put together a line-up of skilled politicians with institutional memory of South Africa's history with the US. They said they believed that South Africa should adopt the same strategy used during the liberation struggle by the ANC by going around Trump and targeting key stakeholders in the US who can put enough pressure on the president.
I agree with the position that our government has taken, that it should directly engage the Trump administration. I think that is very correct. Maybe in that engagement, we'll come to know what is it. What is it? What has changed?
— Former president Thabo Mbeki
“If we can adopt the same strategy of Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki and how they tackled the [Ronald] Reagan administration, when we focused our programmes on stakeholders like the black caucus, the US media, the people, business, those in the Senate and congress who are willing to listen to us. This is how we put pressure on the Trump administration,” the diplomat said.
In an interview with the SABC, Mbeki said as much, stressing that the ANC had strong working ties with the Republican party during the Reagan administration, which had been sympathetic to the apartheid regime.
Mbeki explained that during that time, Republican senators helped the ANC by overriding a veto by Reagan — a Republican president — against sanctioning the apartheid regime.
“I agree with the position that our government has taken, that it should directly engage the Trump administration. I think that is very correct. Maybe in that engagement, we'll come to know what it is. What has changed? Because it actually is a radical change, completely out of the blue, with regard to the behaviour of the Republican Party in the US, towards us.”
Another South African diplomat who served in the US said Ramaphosa's decision to send envoys to countries of interest was equally important to tackle the Trump problem and also strengthen ties with other trade allies.
They said that South Africa must look at fostering stronger partnerships with regions like the EU, but also build strong relationships with key South-South countries including those in South America.
“We must not treat this challenge with panic. We have to realise that we have allies, very strong allies, on the continent, in Europe and in Asia. We have a strong climate change policy which is aligned to the EU, and we must also make clear our redress policies. If you listened to President Emmanuel Macron, he was clear that should tariffs be imposed on Europe from Trump, he is willing to take him on. This tells us that we are not alone on the Trump problem. It's those allies that we need to approach,” they said.
After the executive order and a social media statement by US secretary of state Marco Rubio that he would not attend the G20 as a snub to Pretoria over misinformation, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to Pretoria.
In a statement, EU council president António Costa stressed its commitment to deepen ties with South Africa “as a reliable and predictable partner”.
“I look forward to the bilateral South Africa-EU summit on March 13. I expressed the EU’s full support for South Africa’s leadership of G20 and its ambition to strengthen multilateral co-operation and the pact for the future to address the most pressing global issues,” he said.
Last week during an EU ambassadors conference, its president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe must deal with the world as it finds it.
“And I am convinced that in this hot-headed world, Europe's best approach is to remain level-headed. It must make decisions not out of emotion or nostalgia for a world that once was. But rather out of calculated judgment about what is in our own interest in the world as it is today. Because foreign policy and diplomacy are not an end in themselves. We all know it. It is a way to deliver stability, security and prosperity for our citizens — and for our partners.
“... We need to change the way we act. We need to be bold. We need to be agile. We need to engage. We might have to engage in tough negotiations, even with long-time partners. And we might also have to work with countries that are not like-minded but do share some of our interests. Because the basic principle of diplomacy in this new world is to keep our eyes on the goal. That means, finding common ground with partners to our mutual benefit — and accepting that on occasion we will have to agree to disagree,” she said.
China has also shown support with its ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng pledging support for Pretoria to host the G20.
if Trump is going to continue basing his decisions on misinformation and mistruths, then of course, the EU and others are going to come out batting for South Africa
— Oscar van Heerden, researcher at UJ’s Centre for African Diplomacy and Leadership
International relations expert and researcher at UJ’s Centre for African Diplomacy and Leadership Oscar van Heerden said these powerful blocs are sending a clear message that the days of the US thinking they are the most important player in the room is over.
“I think that the EU, very consciously, decided that these are falsehoods that South Africa is being accused of and the Trump administration has ulterior motives in mind and that they don't agree with those. It doesn't in any way suggest that there is tension between the EU and Trump for now. But if Trump is going to continue basing his decisions on misinformation and mistruths, then of course, the EU and others are going to come out batting for South Africa,” he said.
He said Trump's agenda was not only the Israeli war but also the Brics bloc.
“We know that they both have a problem with Brics and so instead of targeting the big players, they want to make an example of the weakest link, which is South Africa. And so they want to send a message, supposedly to Brazil, to Russia and others, that this is what we can do to those countries, those smaller economies that are all primary members of Brics.”
Van Heerden said South Africa will need people who understand statecraft “because it's not only about business interests”. South Africa must also target multilateral institutions and not necessarily individual countries, he said, adding that SA must engage the EU, the Far East bloc and Latin American countries.
Academic and international relations expert Dr David Monyae said South Africa will need to isolate issues and negotiate with them. He said he saw no reason South Africa can't walk back on some of the issues raised by Trump.
“So we can walk back in certain ways and fine-tune and arrive at an agreement. But I do not think we can walk back on issues of our national interest, or domestic issues, on issues of land and how it is managed.”
Monyae said Ramaphosa must find a technical team that really understands the dynamics of the US and the recent global shifts.
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