President Cyril Ramaphosa says he has not dumped his plan to send special envoys to the US as part of efforts to mend relations with the administration of his counterpart Donald Trump.
Responding to questions in parliament over the deteriorating diplomatic relations between Pretoria and Washington, Ramaphosa rejected the notion that his administration had been “beaten” in the apparent race to engage Trump by certain formations in the country.
This assertion was made by ActionSA’s parliamentary leader Athol Trollip during oral question time with Ramaphosa in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Trollip was referring to recent trips to the US by AfriForum and Solidarity, and another by the DA, during which they held talks with representatives of the Trump administration over its hostile stance towards South Africa.
The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that Pretoria was losing interest in sending a delegation to Washington, preferring to engage through the American embassy in Pretoria.
But Ramaphosa told MPs that he was still keen on sending envoys to the White House to resolve tensions with the American government after Trump pulled the plug on the funding of anti-HIV programmes worth more than $400m through Pepfar.
“No, we have not been beaten to it. We are in very good preparations. And the counsel that we got from a number of quarters was that the US is now in the milieu of being very transactional. They would like to see what transaction can be crafted with any country they interact with.
“That process is under way through various departments and in time I will be able to tell the envoys to go and they will be going under the rubric of advancing our foreign policy.”
Trump cut foreign aid over South Africa's enactment of the expropriation act, which allows for expropriation of land and other property without compensation, which Solidarity and AfriForum claimed were part of government attempts to isolate white minority communities.
Ramaphosa told MPs that these were gross “misrepresentations,” and “those who have recently travelled to the US over these issues did not have a mandate to do so”.
“Foreign policy is the preserve of the executive. Other people who keep going (to the US), in the end they do not represent South Africa. South Africans are represented by the executive,” said Ramaphosa as ANC MPs applauded. “So rest assured, we will be following through the mandate we have in terms of our constitution to ensure that what we do in relation to other countries advances in the interests of South Africa and the executive that I lead will be doing so.”
Ramaphosa lashed out at Solidarity and AfriForum, saying he took “a dim view” of their “unpatriotic” conduct, as they had gone to Washington to spread falsehoods about the affairs of the country.
He said his government was committed to improving relations with the US.
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