U.S.-South Africa relations sank to a new low last week after the South African ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, accused the Trump administration of “supremacy” on four occasions during an online lecture on U.S. foreign policy to a South African think-tank with close ties to that country’s African National Congress (ANC) party.
Mr. Rasool stated that the Trump administration was “mobilizing a supremacy” to drive a “supremacist assault” around “instictivist, nativist, racist things” that are “visible in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again Movement, as a response not only to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate is set to become 48% white”. Mr. Rasool further accused Elon Musk and Vice President Vance of exporting this assault to Europe and the UK via a “dog whistle that is being heard in a global white base”. Mr Rasool further said that South Africa would lead a global push-back against the United States.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch accused the ambassador of “disgraceful anti-American hate speech” whilst Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that the ambassador was “a race baiting-politician who hates America” and that he is “no longer welcome in our great country” and is considered “_persona non grata_”.
Pretoria responded via a short statement that they would engage with the U.S. “through diplomatic channels”.
Mr Rasool’s statements are the high-water mark of a foreign policy that Pretoria has pursued against the United States for several years. In 2018 Nikki Haley, then Ambassador to the United Nations, published a report showing that “the 10 countries with the lowest voting coincidence with the United States were, in ascending order: Zimbabwe, Burundi, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Bolivia, and South Africa”. In 2020 numerous ANC members and affiliates chanted “one bullet one American” in a protest outside the American embassy in Pretoria. The former American ambassador to Washington accused South Africa of having in December of 2022 supplied arms to Russia.
South Africa in 2023 played the leading role in having Iran admitted to the BRICS grouping. Following the October 7th 2023 attack on Israel, South Africa dispatched its foreign minister to Teheran for a gladhanding visit, following which South Africa announced its intention to pursue its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In January of this year, after President Trump had signed an executive order warning that South Africa threatened U.S. national security by “re-invigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements” a Cabinet minister from the ANC party responded by suggesting that South Africa deepen its nuclear ties to Iran. Earlier this month the ANC hosted Iran’s ambassador to South Africa for a smiling photo opportunity. Mr Rasool was himself dispatched for his second stint as South African ambassador to Washington despite his strong anti-American and anti-Israel activism and having boasted of the keffiyeh given to him by former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
A mistake made by many Western diplomats is to think that South Africa’s foreign policy is driven by historical loyalty to countries that supported its anti-apartheid struggle. The pattern is instead of anti-Western ideology that when matched with money has seen South Africa ‘lease’ its foreign policy infrastructure to bolster the global objectives of ANC donors. Past beneficiaries have included the Suharto regime in Indonesia, Sani Abacha in Nigeria, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Sadam Hussein in Iraq.
Yet not all is lost and the axing of Mr Rasool represents an opportunity to reset the relationship. The ANC party is in desperate trouble. Having held a national electoral majority since 1994 its support fell to 40% in elections last year and it polled at just over 30% in February of this year. Since June of last year, South Africa has been governed by a coalition that includes several pro-Western parties. The ANC’s loss of support is because South Africa’s economy is in the doldrums, managing only a fraction of the economic growth of its emerging market peers. Real per-capita GDP has fallen year on year for the better part of a decade. The unemployment rate is over 30%. To return to emerging market growth averages South Africa would need to lift its fixed investment rate from the present 15% of GDP to nearer 25% but does not have the domestic capital to do so.
Public opinion in South Africa is moderate and often surprisingly pro-Western given the supine approach of Western diplomats to the ANC’s many provocations and the extent of anti-Western messaging in the local media. Almost 7 out of 10 voters, including ANC voters, believe for example, that “it is in the best interests of all South Africans to build close relationships with the U.S. and the EU”.
The U.S. also has strategic interests in South Africa. The South African naval base at Simonstown is one of three points that anchor control of the Indo-Pacific as well as serving as the literal backdoor into the South Atlantic and therefore the Trump Administration’s envisaged hegemonic sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere. America’s fixed investment commitments to Africa have also lagged behind those of China on a continent that commands more than 50 votes on global fora, houses a significant share of global critical minerals, and now has more cities of over 1 million inhabitants than Europe and America combined in economies that are often growing quickly.
America owes South Africa nothing and even if the relationship with Pretoria breaks down entirely the U.S. has excellent options in neighboring Namibia or Angola to secure its regional and strategic interests. However, those interests and the new South African government’s need to lift levels of fixed investment are symbiotic meaning that the two countries have mutual interests far more closely aligned than the tenor of their relationship of the past decade would suggest.
_Frans Cronje chairs the Yorktown Foundation for Freedom in Washington DC_