Away from the political noise, commentary such as “SA won’t be bullied” may make for lekker local headlines, but it carries no weight in global geopolitics. What is needed is clearly articulated national interests, including trade, national security and foreign policy.
Yet there is little sign of this from SA. The focus continues to fall on tinkering with the optics, like renaming the medium-term strategic framework the medium-term development plan. The international relations department’s 2022 framework document is essentially about peace, friendship and fairness. It talks about taking up “opportunities offered by the diplomacy of ubuntu” but is virtually silent on the realpolitik of values versus trade-offs.
SA’s trade policy is dated 2010, though a May 2021 update added support for resolving disputes through arbitration “not power relations” in a rules-based multilateral trading system. It’s unclear how this will play out when the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) is renegotiated with a tariff-obsessed US administration. The cost of exclusion from preferential US market access is estimated at more than $3bn, affecting the automotive and agricultural sectors in particular.
The national security strategy has been classified top secret since the cabinet adopted it on December 4 2013 and pledges over the past two years of public consultations for a revised strategy failed to materialise. Unlike in Ghana, Germany or the UK, who knows what SA’s national security strategy may be?
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s envoys, who are soon to be dispatched to capitals worldwide, face have an uphill battle, even with remnants of the nostalgic goodwill for Nelson Mandela’s SA in Europe and elsewhere.
Within days of taking office US President Donald Trump made good on his campaign rhetoric to “Make America Great Again” through tariffs. Columbia, Mexico, Panama, Canada and China were first in the sights of his preferred weapon. All but China, which imposed counter-tariffs, came up with something to placate Trump.
Yet the 25% steel and aluminium tariffs Trump imposed on Monday will hit Canada hard despite its earlier border security trade-off package. This followed the businessman-turned-president’s plans to turn Gaza into a Riviera sans Palestinians, in clear violation of international law. Next in line seems to be the EU.
It is unsurprising that the Expropriation Act caught the eye of the Trump administration given its hard right turn, wholesale dismissal of inclusion, equity and diversity and transactional stance to global trade, aid and politics. Far-right European and Latin American political leaders were invited to his inauguration, so it’s a no-brainer that he’d be interested in Afrikaner political identity entrepreneurs Solidarity Movement and AfriForum.
Had SA’s national interest, national security and foreign policy strategies been meaningfully set out and operationalised, a proper response would have been possible. Not at the point of crisis over the past few days, but over the past seven years since AfriForum first got Trump’s attention with false “white genocide” claims around farm murders.
Instead it’s been messy. The Expropriation Act, while signed by Ramaphosa on January 24 ahead of the ANC national executive committee lekgotla, is not in force. That’s because the presidential proclamation of its starting date is not yet gazetted.
A squiz at the Government Gazettes this week showed February 7 is the commencement date for the SA National Water Resources Infrastructure SOC Act. Before that, on Christmas Eve, Ramaphosa proclaiming December 20 2024 as the start for the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, and gazetted judges’ salaries. The Expropriation Act, like the National Health Insurance Act, remains in limbo — on the statute books, but not in force.
That Ramaphosa was unable to co-ordinate the two presidential legislative responsibilities of signing and proclaiming commencement of the new expropriation law in the roughly 10 months it lay on his desk raises questions about state capacity, never mind strategic nous.
But it’s what happens when SA doesn’t clearly — and publicly — define its national interests, or its national security strategy and foreign policy. Fudging it can only go so far.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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