Kallie Kriel, CEO of Afrikaner rights group AfriForum, said President Cyril Ramaphosa’s international envoys are set to fail in their pending mission to the US to ease escalating diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
The envoys will be responsible for clarifying SA’s foreign and domestic policies after a series of false assertions by US President Donald Trump and SA-born billionaire Elon Musk of widespread land grabs under SA’s Expropriation Act. These have led to fears that SA’s relations with one of its largest trade partners could deteriorate.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the delegation will also include members of the government of national unity (GNU).
AfriForum will join the Solidarity Movement in sending a delegation to the US to share their concerns about government laws and policies with US political representatives.
Kriel told Business Day: “I think the international envoys will fail for the simple reason that the fallout with the US is not based on misunderstanding or misinformation. Our information is that the US has taken note of what is happening in SA, especially SA’s foreign policy for quite a number of years.
“And that you are not going to solve simply by going to plead that there was misinformation. The real problems are the Expropriation Act, the Bela [Basic Education Laws Amendment] Act that was signed that targets the survival of the Afrikaans-speaking cultural communities, as well as SA’s foreign policy that has been anti-Western and anti-US for a couple of years. We should have remained neutral.”
Kriel said the tensions between SA and the US won’t be solved just by going over “and say ‘no, no, you understand it incorrectly. The US can also read, they can read the Expropriation Act, they can read Section 19(2) as well as 12(3) which show the serious threat for property rights, and those things have to be solved before such an envoy will have success”.
Kriel said the ANC and government are looking for a scapegoat, which is AfriForum.
Trump signed an executive order recently to halt US aid to SA and offering resettlement to the US for white Afrikaners — a proposal rejected by Afrikaner groups, including those who lobbied the US and Trump specifically against the SA government.
The signing of the executive order by Trump was a culmination of a series of diplomatic pressure points between Washington and Pretoria in the past two years, including SA hauling US ally Israel to the International Court of Justice over its war with Gaza and the perceived closeness of SA with China and Russia.
Trump’s order, which was preceded by a threat to impose 100% tariffs on Brics countries in December 2024, is particularly worrying for the SA government as it coincides with the country’s presidency of the Group of 20 this year. SA is a major beneficiary of the US African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa), which facilitated duty-free access to the US market for more than $3bn (R55bn) worth of SA’s exports in 2022 alone, mainly motor vehicles, fruit and wine.
Emma Louise Powell, DA international relations and co-operation spokesperson, said the DA will be sending its own high-level delegation to engage with decisionmakers within the next two weeks.
During the debate on the state of the nation address last week, Ramaphosa stressed that “at a time like this, we need to stand united as a nation, particularly now when we are facing [a] harsh global wind”.
“This is not the time for any of us to rush off to foreign lands to lay complaints about issues that we can solve ourselves in our country. We need SA solutions to SA problems,” Ramaphosa said.
“While there are many diverse and different voices in our society, we must strive to convey a common message.”
MK spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said the party can’t defend the Expropriation Act, which is a watered-down version of what it is calling for, namely expropriation without compensation.
Freedom Front Plus and Solidarity did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Magwenya said there was no update yet on the envoys.
With Thando Maeko
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