US President Donald Trump has arrived in the UK to mixed emotions and is mixing business with pleasure. His arrival in Scotland at his golf course on Turnberry was met with protests against everything Maga by members of the public — and a warm welcome from British prime minister Keir Starmer, with whom he is sure to fit in a cheeky round.
While everything about the UK now feels like a 1980s dystopian nightmare, keeping Trump sweet is the one thing the UK government has actually been exceptionally good at. Trump has not only repeatedly said he likes the UK’s Starmer “a lot” because he is “very nice, and doing a very good job”, but he has complimented the looks and accent of the UK’s ambassador to the US, Lord Peter Mandelson.
The global media is now regularly treated to smiling love-ins between Trump and the Brits. This bonhomie has — for the moment — spared them the full wrath of tariffs and toxic diplomacy for which Trump’s team has form. This is quite the turnaround.
The news of Mandelson’s appointment in December was met with hellfire and disdain by Trump’s team of wonks. Chris LaCivita, one of his most senior special advisers, fumed on X that Mandelson was “an absolute moron — he should stay at home! SAD! Mandelson described Trump as a danger to the world”.
On top of this, a former UK ambassador to the US during the first Trump tenure, Sir Kim Darroch, had to resign in July 2019 after diplomatic emails were leaked in which he called Trump “a very stupid guy”. Blimey.
The UK has completely turned around its diplomatic relationship with the US, and this is in no small measure thanks to the pragmatism and charisma of its Trump whisperer, Mandelson, who has been advising Starmer since he began his bid to become prime minister.
So what can SA learn from the UK? What should President Cyril Ramaphosa and his special envoy, Mcebisi Jonas, do about Trump amid fragile bilateral relations? Among other things, SA’s position on Palestine has been a major cause of its diplomatic and tariff troubles with the Trump administration. This is even after the “golf diplomacy” visit to the White House by Ramaphosa with Ernie Els and Retief Goosen in May.
Trump still has it in for SA, announcing earlier in July that from August 1 he intends to charge a tariff of “only” 30% on all SA products exported to the US, thereby removing duty-free concessions to the farming, textile and automotive sectors under the US’s African Growth & Opportunity Act. Trump also included the ominous caveat that the rates could move “upward or downward depending on our relationship with your country”.
On the matter of Palestine, global sentiment is beginning to turn, as images of mass starvation in Gaza make the position of the Israeli government increasingly indefensible. Moreover, in an increasingly multipolar world many countries, including those in the Brics bloc, now recognise Palestinian statehood. French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent recognition of Palestinian statehood, alongside Ireland, Norway and Spain, will make Starmer’s balancing act between the US and the EU a tighter rope to walk.
Elon Musk’s exile from the Oval Office, alongside the alleged claims of white genocide he influenced Trump to believe, could also, over time, see Trump’s stance soften.
SA remains geostrategic, with important resources, and should seek to strike a balance between flattering Trump while attaining its political and economic aims. This could include discreetly seeking advice from Mandelson himself, who has long had an interest in SA’s post-apartheid dispensation.
He also knows Ramaphosa well from the late 1990s, when he offered to advise the new ANC government.
• Dr Masie is a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics’ Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa.
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