The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a pre-eminent voice on foreign policy and national security issues, says SA is struggling to reckon with its role in the breakdown of relations between Washington and Pretoria.
The Washington-based CSIS is run by John Hamre, former US deputy secretary of defence and chair of the Defence Policy Board.
The organisation in an essay said the souring diplomatic relations between the countries which culminated in the expulsion of SA ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool put at risk two-way trade of about $20bn — placing the blame largely at Pretoria’s door.
Ryan Cummings, a senior associate with the Africa programme at the CSIS, said the deterioration of relations between SA and the US is not a phenomenon that emerged at the advent of Donald Trump’s second term in office.
He said this is rather the culmination of a foreign policy disposition that is antithetic to SA’s “self-proclaimed geopolitical neutrality and which in many cases threatens US domestic and international security,” arguing that a protracted standoff serves no-one’s interests — least of all SA’s.
“Mending this relationship requires acknowledging an uncomfortable truth: SA needs the US more than the US needs SA. While Pretoria must defend its sovereignty, it must also recognise that diplomatic recalibration — not confrontation — is the surest path to preserving economic and strategic ties,” Cummings said.
“By addressing misconceptions, amplifying its economic strengths and offering tangible security co-operation, SA can rebuild bridges without sacrificing its principles.”
SA’s stock market lost more than R1-trillion in value last week after Trump’s unprecedented tariffs on some of SA and other nations’ products spooked global markets. The tariffs on SA and other African countries also raised questions about SA’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) — when it comes up for renewal in September.
Agoa provides duty-free access to the US market for most agricultural and manufactured products, such as cars and parts. SA minister of trade, industry & competition Parks Tau on Friday said the tariffs imposed by Trump have essentially nullified Agoa.
Meryl Pick, head of equities research at Old Mutual Investment Group, said SA’s exclusion from Agoa would not be a train smash.
“So, while being excluded from the agreement would be bad for sentiment, our research shows that the actual impact on GDP would be quite low, probably less than 0.1% of GDP, with only about 10% of our total exports to the US falling under Agoa provisions,” said Pick.
“I view SA’s possible Agoa exclusion as having been revisited under the Trump administration rather than instigated by it. If you cast your mind back to last year, there have been ongoing discussions, including in the US Senate, about US discomfort with issues such as SA’s ties to Russia, reaching crisis levels with the Lady R diplomatic spat,” she said.
One of the issues the Trump administration has with SA is the country’s affirmative action and broad-based BEE policy program.
These are contentious policies meant to redress economic inequality induced by the apartheid governance system and facilitate economic conditions that are more inclusive and representative of the country’s racial dynamics.
However, the policies’ detractors, including Trump ally and
SA-born Elon Musk, have called the policies discriminatory.
Cummings said to counter such claims, the SA government can mobilise the about 600 US corporates doing business in the country to provide an “honest and transparent account of labour conditions and business practices in the country”.
Some of the blue-chip US companies doing business in SA include Citi, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, General Electric, Visa, Ford and Amazon.
CSIS said Pretoria’s support for “rogue states and actors” — Russia, Cuba, Libya, Iran, and non-state groups such as Hamas — has been a persistent irritant.
Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa programme at the CSIS, said while SA frames these relationships as rooted in the support it received during its anti-apartheid struggle, the US today looks at these choices through a contemporary geopolitical lens and sees them as a threatening alignment with adversaries.
“SA’s instinct to blame external actors, such as tech moguls Elon Musk and Peter Thiel — who they dismiss as simply 'former South Africans' — for the downturn in relations is also a fraught choice. More critically, scapegoating these administration insiders allows SA to avoid the difficult introspection required to address the root causes of the rift that it may be responsible for,” Hudson said.
“The cumulative effect of Pretoria’s foreign policy choices — its alignment with US adversaries and its hypocritical defence of its positions — has eroded most of the goodwill of the post-apartheid period and erased the halo effect that Nelson Mandela brought to bilateral relations,” he said.
“Blaming Musk and Thiel sidesteps the need for SA to reckon with its own decisions and their consequences.”
Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, spent his childhood in SA and Namibia.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.