US running out of patience with SA, warns ambassador Bozell
The US is running out of patience with the South African government, which has not addressed five demands the superpower made to smooth relations between the two countries.
The non-response, about a year after the demands were made, was becoming “a statement”, according to new US ambassador to South Africa Leo Brent Bozell III, who addressed the BizNews Conference in Hermanus on Tuesday.
He also decried as not helpful “insults” by President Cyril Ramaphosa in an interview with the New York Times last week in which Ramaphosa was quoted as saying US President Donald Trump’s refugee policy favouring white Afrikaners is “racist”.
“Insulting our president on the eve of coming to our country is not a good sign. Sending condolence letters to Iran after one of the world’s greatest terrorists has been put down, it’s not a good sign,” he said in reference to South Africa’s message of condolence after Iranian leader Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes.
Bozell said the US confronted South Africa with “five asks”, but about a year later there has been no response from the South African government.
The “asks” are for South Africa to:
rethink the Expropriation Act and broad-based black economic empowerment;
condemn the Kill the Boer chant;
prioritise farm murders to protect white farmers; and
be non-aligned.
It is understood the US wants SA to exit the Brics bloc and drop its International Court of Justice case against Israel, among other demands.
I’m sorry, I don’t care what your courts say. It’s hate speech
— US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell on 'Kill the Boer'
“I’ll tell you where our position has been very firm. We put together five asks. I mentioned three but there were a few more. We’ve put them forward to the South African government. We’ve been waiting for almost a year for a response,” said Bozell.
“As I’ve made clear in meetings I’ve had, the US is running out of patience. We believe more and more it becomes a statement by the South African government when it doesn’t want to respond to simple questions we have.”
He was responding to a question about business opportunities. given the blockages that exist between the two countries.
Bozell told attendees Trump had one mandate for him. “He said, ‘I want South Africa to become non-aligned once again’. That’s not too much to ask, non-alignment. That’s what he wants. They’ll take non-alignment, not where we’re going right now.”
Bozell said the US is seeking clarity on Kill the Boer, which he believes is hate speech. “I’m sorry, I don’t care what your courts say. It’s hate speech,” he said.
Bozell encouraged the business community to be vocal about unhappiness over government policies.
“I don’t want to hear businesses say one thing publicly and another thing privately. I want the businesses who tell me privately that triple BEE is hurting them to say so publicly. I don’t want them to feel fear from the government. There has to be that kind of outspokenness.
“I will urge you to be more outspoken. I think we are at perhaps an existential moment that none of us wanted. Nobody was looking for this situation, to go in this direction. Things were going very well, but things have gone off course.”
Bozell said true success would be to level the playing field in business, where the US is allowed to compete on an even footing against any country in the world one on one. “Because if there is that level playing field, without question I believe we’ll crush the competition. We have better products, better technology,” he said.
These concerns are not merely rhetorical. They involve the business environment, world safety, the Expropriation Act and South Africa’s growing engagement with some of America’s greatest adversaries. These issues shape investor confidence
— Bozell
The US values partners in South Africa, which is the biggest US trade and investment partner in sub-Saharan Africa with more than 500 US companies operating in the country and employing more than 250,000 South Africans, he said.
“That is real partnership, but partnership must be rooted in reciprocity. President Trump has been clear about our concerns. These concerns are not merely rhetorical. They involve the business environment, world safety, the Expropriation Act and South Africa’s growing engagement with some of America’s greatest adversaries. These issues shape investor confidence,” he said.
They shape strategic trust and the trajectory of the bilateral relationship.
“When businesses believe their property rights may be uncertain, when policy frameworks create unpredictability instead of clarity, and when strategic alignments appeared to drift towards regimes that do not share our democratic values, common ground becomes harder to sustain,” said Bozell.
While he recognised South Africa’s history demands serious attention to inequality and redress, and that the injustices of apartheid could not be dismissed or minimised, the question was not whether historical injustice matters, “of course it does”, the real question was whether current policies are achieving their intended outcomes.
Bozell said programmes such as BBBEE were designed to expand opportunity and correct historic injustice, which are important goals, but “when those policies are structured in ways that introduce challenges to ownership or create complex compliance requirements or are clouded in charges of corruption, investors begin to reassess risk”.