PALESA MORUDU ROSENBERG: Time to reset SA-US relations

Naledi Pandor was unable to meaningfully engage with the leadership in Congress or the US administration.

With accelerated global tensions breaking out into shooting and trade wars, this would be a good time for SA to rethink key aspects of its approach to foreign policy. The element of reset provided by the coalition government affords Pretoria such an opportunity.

Can SA meld strategic non-alignment with a measure of humility in the national interest, or is it determined to stick with an ideologically driven recklessness fed by an inflated sense of self, wobbling along on a deflated diplomatic tyre?

The need for such a rethink is clear when it comes to SA’s relations with the world’s largest economic and military power. Whatever one thinks of US politics, it is essential to understand that the US is not only a global power, it is SA’s second-largest trading partner, with exports valued at $10.9bn, and its fourth largest investor, with 600 US companies employing about 134,600 people.

Early in 2024, then-international relations and co-operation minister Naledi Pandor visited Washington. That followed a bipartisan push in the US Congress, led by congressman John James (Republican of Michigan) for a review of US relations with SA. Such a review would explore whether SA had “undermined US national security or foreign policy interests”.

James and some of his colleagues have taken strong exception to SA’s positions on Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Israeli assault on Gaza, and its full embrace of China. Moreover, in a bipartisan move, SA was put on notice regarding its continued participation in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). 

Pandor received a lukewarm reception. She was unable to meaningfully engage with the leadership in Congress or the administration. She focused instead on some “influential non-state actors”. She told the Carnegie Foundation that US legislators never bothered to engage the SA government about its foreign policy positions. On a scale of one to 10, she said, US-SA relations were hovering at six. Interestingly, while a 60% score is a decent pass mark in SA schools, in the US it’s a D-minus, on the brink of failure.   

With the Agoa matter coming to a head, trade, industry and competition minister Parks Tau and his deputy, Andrew Whitfield, visited Washington two weeks ago to do damage control. Their delegation to the Agoa summit included some top SA business and labour leaders, and it appears they have bought Pretoria time. At the very least, Washington seems willing to give the new coalition government space to figure out how it intends to manage its US relations.   

To be clear, there is bipartisan and palpable impatience with SA in Washington. Furthermore, this mood may not change much, regardless of who occupies the White House after the November US elections. SA is one of many countries on the African continent trading with, and receiving aid from, the US. It no longer has a special cachet.   

It is significant that SA was not on the itinerary for vice-president Kamala Harris’ only visit to Africa over the past four years. Instead, she visited Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. President Joe Biden has not visited the continent as president, but his wife Jill travelled to Namibia and Kenya. In Accra, Harris declared that the US was “all in on Africa because African leadership is critical to global peace and security, because African nations are essential partners at the UN and in support of international rules and norms ... because the fates of the US people and of the US and the continent are interconnected and intertwined”.   

The need for such a rethink is clear when it comes to SA’s relations with the world’s largest economic and military power. Whatever one thinks of US politics, it is essential to understand that the US is not only a global power, it is SA’s second-largest trading partner, with exports valued at $10.9bn, and its fourth largest investor, with 600 US companies employing about 134,600 people.

Early in 2024, then-international relations and co-operation minister Naledi Pandor visited Washington. That followed a bipartisan push in the US Congress, led by congressman John James (Republican of Michigan) for a review of US relations with SA. Such a review would explore whether SA had “undermined US national security or foreign policy interests”.

James and some of his colleagues have taken strong exception to SA’s positions on Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Israeli assault on Gaza, and its full embrace of China. Moreover, in a bipartisan move, SA was put on notice regarding its continued participation in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). 

Pandor received a lukewarm reception. She was unable to meaningfully engage with the leadership in Congress or the administration. She focused instead on some “influential non-state actors”. She told the Carnegie Foundation that US legislators never bothered to engage the SA government about its foreign policy positions. On a scale of one to 10, she said, US-SA relations were hovering at six. Interestingly, while a 60% score is a decent pass mark in SA schools, in the US it’s a D-minus, on the brink of failure.   

With the Agoa matter coming to a head, trade, industry and competition minister Parks Tau and his deputy, Andrew Whitfield, visited Washington two weeks ago to do damage control. Their delegation to the Agoa summit included some top SA business and labour leaders, and it appears they have bought Pretoria time. At the very least, Washington seems willing to give the new coalition government space to figure out how it intends to manage its US relations.   

To be clear, there is bipartisan and palpable impatience with SA in Washington. Furthermore, this mood may not change much, regardless of who occupies the White House after the November US elections. SA is one of many countries on the African continent trading with, and receiving aid from, the US. It no longer has a special cachet.   

It is significant that SA was not on the itinerary for vice-president Kamala Harris’ only visit to Africa over the past four years. Instead, she visited Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. President Joe Biden has not visited the continent as president, but his wife Jill travelled to Namibia and Kenya. In Accra, Harris declared that the US was “all in on Africa because African leadership is critical to global peace and security, because African nations are essential partners at the UN and in support of international rules and norms ... because the fates of the US people and of the US and the continent are interconnected and intertwined”.   

These words are at least not far from SA’s stated policy intentions. But if Harris becomes president, her administration will not necessarily look to Pretoria for leadership. There are plenty other countries to choose from. And former US president Donald Trump has clearly telegraphed his view of African countries.   

Either way, President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to rethink his approach to the US. Neither a Trump nor a Harris administration will entertain what appears to be the prevailing view in Pretoria that a diminished US global position equates to a just world order, and that “non-alignment” means a complete embrace of Washington’s strategic enemies and competitors.   

SA’s unity government states that its foreign policy will be “based on human rights, constitutionalism, the national interest, solidarity, peaceful resolution of conflicts... North-South and African co-operation, multilateralism and a just, peaceful and equitable world”. Fine words indeed. But it is one thing to have an ideological position about how world power should be reconfigured, and quite another to have the adroitness to bring it about. 

Word on the Washington street is that the last time Pretoria deployed the requisite skills to manage the complex and critical US relationship was when former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool was appointed SA ambassador to Washington. He understood how the town worked, was adept at political and public diplomacy, was able to build relations on both sides of the congressional aisle, and cultivated relationships with civil society organisations.

Ramaphosa’s predecessors understood the stakes and were able to manage the complexity of US-SA relations. Nelson Mandela famously told former US president Bill Clinton that SA would not abandon those countries that supported its liberation even when it annoyed Washington. His successor as president, Thabo Mbeki, also had strained relations with Washington, primarily due to his bizarre stance on HIV and Aids. Yet both presidents invested hugely in skilled diplomacy to manage relations.   

A deployment to the world’s superpower is a strategic choice. It is not a place holder for a comrade being granted a favour or on the brink of retirement. It is possible to manage SA’s national interests while being a principled critic of US foreign policy where there are major disagreements. But that requires skill rather than ideological adherence.

The US administration that takes office in January 2025, whether blue or red, will be watching Pretoria’s next moves. Tau and his deputy were a good start, but it’s time SA upped its diplomatic game.

Morudu Rosenberg is a writer and director at Clarity Global based in Washington DC.