The markets reacted with remarkable equanimity to US President Donald Trump's nasty tweet about SA on Thursday: "I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. 'South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.' @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews"
Erm, actually, that's not happening and the markets did pretty well nothing. By Friday the rand was marginally stronger than it had been just before Trump's tweet. On the ground, though, back in SA, social media exploded, some people thanking Trump and others condemning him. I lean towards the latter but the tweet I enjoyed most was from Ryan Coetzee, the former DA strategist, while enjoying a holiday in Turkey, another of Trump's favourite allies.
"SA Twitter wriggling with excitement at being the subject of a Trump tweet," wrote Coetzee. "A new day, a new opportunity for some to explode with outrage; for others, secret/not-so-secret glee that Trump is having a go at their enemies. Exhausting all round."
But we must be careful. Trump views the world through a prism all of his own and he could do us great harm. We have a trade surplus with the US. Mainly, the surplus is driven by German cars made in East London, but we are also included in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which means the goods we export are taxed much more lightly when they get to the US than they would be if we were kicked out of Agoa.
Being ejected from Agoa would be a big deal and cost many thousands of South African jobs. One of the conditions for African countries to get in is to respect property rights, which, obviously, appear threatened by the ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa's determination to pursue changes to the constitution to make more explicit the right of the state to expropriate property without compensation.
And if bullying SA is politically useful for Trump at home, he'll do it. The farm murder reports from AfriForum and the like play to his prejudices anyway. We are easier to kick around than Turkey. Turkey is a member of Nato.
There's no doubt AfriForum has had great success spreading its message of racial victimhood around the world. Last week it was Trump. A few months before it was Peter Dutton, the Australian home affairs minister, who said he wanted to fast-track immigration into Australia for white South African farmers who were the targets of a sort of pogrom.
Dutton this week helped unseat prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in Canberra, although he subsequently lost a three-way challenge to another hard-liner, Scott Morrison. Thinking about that, I remembered that Trump, soon after he arrived in the White House, phoned the leaders of the US's allies, one of whom was Turnbull.
Their call was a disaster. The two men discussed an Obama-era agreement to resettle refugees the Australians have detained on islands on the Pacific fringe. Trump told Turnbull it was "the most unpleasant call all day".
How to fix the rift? The Australian ambassador in Washington instantly knew. He called Greg Norman, the Australian golfer, who had known Trump for years and often played golf with him. The ambassador wanted the president's private phone number. Norman gave it to him and the subsequent "summit" telephone conversation has led, apparently, to a firm friendship.
Trump is immune to normal diplomacy. As it happens, our foreign minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, some time ago invited US secretary of state Mike Pompeo to SA. He should come and see for himself. Listen to all sides, by all means. But Trump's cabinet colleagues never have the last word on policy.
So I was thinking. Trump follows just 47 people on Twitter, mainly family and right-wing commentators. Only two of the 47 are not Americans. One is Piers Morgan, the British journalist. The other is a South African: Gary Player.
It's a golf thing again. Player is a rich and successful businessman, as are Ramaphosa and Trump. He'd get the drama and risk of what Ramaphosa is trying to pull off here. Something has to be done about land ownership. Rather than get the ANC cadre heading our embassy in Washington to try to speak to the Trump administration, Ramaphosa should consider asking Player to approach Trump directly, 18 holes with the great man could make a big difference to the way our next few years turn out.
It's #countryduty. We need time to do this together properly, the way South Africans always do in the end...