Minister of international relations & co-operation Ronald Lamola has called for continued multilateralism and self-sufficiency as the US shifts further towards an isolationist stance.
Though SA valued its strategic relationship with the US, Lamola said recent actions by the Trump administration had accelerated the need for self-reliance, citing the AU’s new public health order and the importance of domestic capabilities as a way to counterbalance Washington’s moves.
Lamola told MPs on Thursday, in a National Assembly debate on the move by US President Donald Trump to halt funding to SA, that the current US administration’s policies as outlined in a Republican-endorsed policy, “Project 2025”, was an example of the shift towards conflict at the cost of co-operation.
The document calls for a scaling back of US foreign aid and “there is no question that executive orders churned out rapidly are in step with this mandate”, Lamola said.
The debate, which was called by EFF leader and MP Julius Malema, comes as the government scrambles to develop a response to Trump’s funding freeze in key sectors such as energy and health.
The US allocated $440m in aid to SA in 2023, the latest year for which US government figures are available, of which $364m went to health.
Treasury draft budget documents released in February show that the health department’s budget was allocated an increase of R28bn over the medium term.
The allocation was not intended to plug the financing gap left by the Trump administration, but rather to accommodate unemployed doctors, address shortfalls in the wage bill and improve hospital infrastructure.
“Our response to this rapidly shifting scene should include collaboration and partnership and strategies to be less reliant on foreign assistance.
“We as a country have to build our own domestic capabilities to be self-sustainable. In 2022 the AU adopted the new public health order aimed at promoting greater self-reliance in health agendas,” Lamola said.
Echoing Lamola’s sentiments, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi said during the debate, “Trump owes SA no cent. He has taken his decision and that is it. The onus lies on us on what to do.”
Motsoaledi said that the government could not fill the funding gap left by the Trump administration.
“In the meantime, we have met many funders — the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Elmar Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office of the UK, our own FirstRand, the trustees of the Solidarity Fund — not the Solidarity that ran to Trump but the Solidarity Fund established during Covid-19,” said Motsoaledi.
No government or funder worldwide “has put money aside waiting for Trump to explode,” he said.
Malema warned that the African Growth and Opportunity Act will be terminated, escalating tensions between the US and SA, while deputy minister of transport Mkhuleko Hlengwa warned that SA’s reliance on aid made the country vulnerable to shifts in geopolitics.
Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi said SA was witnessing the emergence of a dictatorship that wanted to destroy democracy and wanted to do it here too.
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