South Africa on the wrong path
South Africa had expressed concern to the U.S. as they accepted the first white Afrikaners it had offered to resettle after the US president accused Pretoria of racial discrimination against them.
Relations between South Africa and the U.S. have nose-dived this year over a range of domestic and foreign policy issues, culminating in Washington’s expulsion of Pretoria’s ambassador. The expulsion came after comments ambassador Rasool had made during a webinar organized by a South African think-tank, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Studies. Rasool had said he thought that Trump was mobilizing a supremacism and trying to project white victimhood as a dog whistle as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US. Clearly not a suitable ambassador and always thinking in terms of race will not get you far, as the democrats have experienced.
One of the sticking points for Trump is a land expropriation law signed in South Africa in January that Trump has claimed would allow the South African government to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.
Trump, whose ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said in February he would prioritize access to a refugee program for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination. Trump said that any South African farmer and their families seeking to flee would have a rapid pathway to US citizenship. Washington is preparing to resettle up to 1,000 Afrikaners this year.
White Afrikaners are predominantly descendants of Dutch settlers who arrived at the tip of Africa more than three centuries ago. Today they make up most of South Africa’s 7.3% white population. Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the brutal race-based apartheid system that denied the black majority political and economic rights until it was voted out in 1994.
The rapid deterioration of U.S.–South Africa relations under the Trump administration has elicited consternation in Pretoria, but this reaction betrays a fundamental misreading of the relationship’s underlying fragility that predates the current administration. South Africa’s foreign policy choices, particularly its alignment with actors hostile to U.S. interests, have long strained bilateral ties. But as the Trump administration pursues a far tougher stance against friends and foes alike, South Africa must confront the cumulative consequences of its decisions, recognize the broader geopolitical dynamics currently at play, and chart a pragmatic path forward to mitigate the economic and diplomatic fallout that it is likely to experience over the next four years.
South Africa’s support for rogue states and actors, Russia, Cuba, Libya, Iran, and non-state groups like Hamas, has been a persistent irritant. While South Africa frames these relationships as both a demonstration of its nonalignment and a principled stand against imperialism, rooted in the support it received during its anti-apartheid struggle, the U.S. today looks at these choices through a contemporary geopolitical lens and sees them as a threatening alignment with adversaries. This divergence has today created a structural tension that no amount of economic benefit or two-way trade can fully bridge. And with Trump’s return, there is a newfound willingness to speak publicly about issues that previous administrations may have only groused about privately.
South Africa’s instinct to blame external actors, such as tech moguls Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who they dismiss as simply former South Africans, or the downturn in relations is also a fraught choice. While these figures, both of whom have ties to South Africa and immeasurable influence within Trump’s circle, have certainly played a role in shaping the administration’s views on issues like land reform and racial equity, their impact is difficult to fully measure. More critically, scapegoating these administration insiders allows South Africa to avoid the difficult introspection required to address the root causes of the rift that it may be responsible for. Bottom line is that the country is a mess and needs to formulate a receipt to get the country back on track.
The cumulative effect of South Africa’s foreign policy choices, its alignment with U.S. adversaries and its hypocritical defense of its positions, has eroded most of the goodwill of the post-apartheid period and erased the halo effect that Nelson Mandela brought to bilateral relations. Blaming Musk and Thiel sidesteps the need for South Africa to reckon with its own decisions and their consequences.
The U.S imposition of a global tariff on automobiles and other products is likely to immediately impact South Africa’s manufacturing sector, but these measures are not exclusive to Pretoria, they will also affect close U.S. allies like Canada and Mexico. Understanding this broader context is critical for South Africa to avoid over personalizing the Trump administration’s policies and knowing which challenges might be within its power alone to address.
Even South Africa’s sympathy for Hamas, long a flashpoint in U.S.-South Africa relations, and its International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza must be seen through a wider frame. The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance against Hamas domestically, targeting U.S. college students protesting the group’s actions by deporting them and suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds from elite universities. If the Trump administration is willing to take such aggressive measures against its own citizens and institutions, it stands to reason that countries openly supportive of Hamas, like South Africa has been, would face similar penalties.
The problem is that the African National Congress (ANC) leadership wants to reap the financial benefits that come from having an economic foot in the wealthy, Western globalized world while maintaining what it contends is an actively non-aligned approach by keeping a political foot in an anti-imperial, anti-American coalition. This includes, but is by no means limited to, what many Western leaders see as South Africa’s role to expand and position the BRICS alliance as a counterweight to Western political and economic hegemony.
Navigating the Trump administration will require South Africa to make difficult choices. One approach, modeled on the strategies of closer U.S. allies like Canada and Mexico, would involve painful concessions that align more closely with Trump’s priorities. This could include dropping the ICJ case against Israel, severing ties with Hamas, and repealing domestic legislation perceived in Washington as antibusiness or antiwhite. The South African white population must be safe, otherwise there will be consequences from the Trump administration. However, such moves would likely be seen as a betrayal of the ANC’s core values, making them politically unpalatable for Pretoria. South Africa is clearly on a sloppy road that might take them down even further to racial unrest, economic uncertainties and geopolitical isolation. The U.S. will be certain to monitor the situation in the country closely.