It is legacy make-or-break time for President Cyril Ramaphosa as he heads to Washington for his first face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump.
He happens to be the first postdemocratic president of SA to have faced historic crises locally and abroad during his presidency — from Covid-19 associated lockdowns, inheriting a broken, captured state to the July 2021 riots, the ANC’s loss of power nationally, the situation in the Middle East, the Russia-Ukraine war and now Trump’s second term reshaping global power dynamics. It has been an eventful seven years.
A lawyer by qualification, Ramaphosa has worn many hats. During his tenure in the SA Council of Unions, he cofounded and built the National Union of Mineworkers from scratch, going from mine hostel to mine hostel to recruit members and collect the 25c-50c membership fee culminating in NUM’s formation. And he led it on SA’s largest and longest mining strike yet.
Ramaphosa led the ANC team during the Codesa negotiations. After leaving mainstream politics he became a successful businessman — including a stint as Bidvest chair — helped broker peace in Northern Ireland and presided over the expansion of Brics as president.
But dealing with Trump — locally comparable to Jacob Zuma — who has a $1.69-trillion budget and the world’s most powerful economic and military arsenal at his disposal, will stretch Ramaphosa to his limits.
His major hurdle is the fake “genocide” narrative against white Afrikaners in SA, which is likely to influence Trump’s attendance at the G20 Summit in November and, more crucially, SA’s stance against Israel and its case before the International Court of Justice.
While insiders say there were concerns about Ramaphosa attending a face-to-face meeting with Trump after his infamous encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ... Ramaphosa remained steadfast in getting into the room with Trump.
Trump has already cut all aid and assistance to SA through a February 7 executive order that has hit our fight against HIV hard, according to senior government sources.
The government has also adopted the realistic view that the country’s access to trade benefits through the African Growth and Opportunity Act — expiring in September — is likely to be terminated.
This week, Trump doubled down on the narrative of a genocide in SA after the US received its first 59 Afrikaner refugees.
Ramaphosa’s signing of the Expropriation Act into law and amendments to the Employment Equity Act are being used by the far right in the US and SA as evidence of minorities under siege in SA. The Expropriation Act and the Employment Equity Amendment Act are before the courts and are set to face constitutional scrutiny.
While insiders say there were concerns about Ramaphosa attending a face-to-face meeting with Trump after his infamous encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office earlier this month, Ramaphosa remained steadfast in getting into the room with Trump.
Minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said on Thursday that Ramaphosa was attending the meeting at Trump’s invitation.
“We are not going to the US on our own. We have been invited by President Trump so there is no-one who invites a guest to mistreat them. We are expecting the highest level of decorum and protocols,” she told journalists.
“It doesn’t mean that we will agree on all matters but we believe our relationship with the US is mutually beneficial. There are more than 600 US companies in the country. SA companies are also invested in the US. We also have that which the US will require — the critical minerals.”
SA has been working on a comprehensive trade deal to offer the Trump administration, but it is unlikely to compromise on issues such as land and employment equity unless compelled to do so by the courts. Interestingly, insiders say an easing of SA’s hardline stance on Israel is now in the realm of the possible.
In the end, it will all come down to whether Ramaphosa’s offering matches Trump’s overtly transactional expectations.
This could be Ramaphosa’s most daunting task yet.
• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.
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