President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump’s high-stakes diplomatic meeting next week is expected to set the stage for a series of bilateral trade agreements in various sectors, including agriculture, energy and transport, Business Day has learnt.
A three-member ministerial team — trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau, international relations & co-operation minister Ronald Lamola, and agriculture minister John Steenhuisen — has been tasked with crafting a trade package deal aimed at repairing relations, three officials familiar with the preparation for the face-to-face meeting in Washington said.
Groundwork being laid
It remains unclear whether formal trade agreements will emerge from the talks, but diplomatic sources suggest the groundwork is being laid for either a bilateral trade and investment framework or a “mini-deal” focused on priority sectors.
“The meeting in the US will unlock the new trade deals which Trump seeks,” a highly placed source in the department of international relations & co-operation told Business Day, declining to be named because the preparations are confidential.
The trade, industry & competition department, which declined to comment on the details of the meeting, has been co-ordinating efforts, its spokesperson Yamkela Fanisi said.
The presidency will make an announcement on the outcomes in due course, Fanisi said.
The meeting comes amid mounting tension over Pretoria’s policy choices at home and with international partners, and Washington’s hardline response that included offering Afrikaners refugee status after claims by right-wing groups of racial persecution.
Ramaphosa on Monday told delegates at the Africa CEO Forum that SA was seeking to remain one of the US key partners on the continent despite the differences in policy positions between the two countries.
“There’s still a long way to go,” he said.
The US president has criticised SA for what he called “aggressive positions” against Washington and its allies, citing Pretoria’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and more recently racial discrimination against white Afrikaners based on allegations by SA right-wing groups.
Hardline stance
The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance on SA, halting all aid, including health and climate funding, citing SA’s land expropriation policies.
Adding fuel to the fire, Trump on Monday further threatened to skip the Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ summit in November in Johannesburg unless “that situation is taken care of”. His administration has also expanded a refugee resettlement programme to include other “disfavoured minorities” claiming racial persecution.
The first group of 49 white Afrikaners who departed SA for the US to participate in the resettlement programme, after the issuing of an executive order in February by Trump, arrived in that country on Monday.
Ramaphosa has dismissed claims of persecution, saying on Monday, “They are not being hounded, they are not being treated badly, and they are leaving ostensibly because they don’t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country.
“We think that the American government has got the wrong end of the stick here, but we’ll continue talking to them.”
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