US President Donald Trumpn Friday signed an Executive Order to cut funding to South Africa over the government’s land expropriation policy and resettle white farmers whose land will allegedly be expropriated. Picture: Jim WATSON / POOL / AFP
A FOREIGN policy expert has warned that South Africa’s trade relations with the US, its second largest trading partner, could begin to deteriorate significantly ahead of handing over the G20 Presidency and the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
This comes after US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an Executive Order to cut funding to South Africa over the government’s land expropriation policy and resettle white farmers whose land will allegedly be expropriated.
Without providing any evidence, Trump accused South Africa’s government of “egregious actions”, saying the recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act) would seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.
Professor Michael Walsh, a senior fellow in the Africa Programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said on Sunday that the Trump Administration desperately wanted to change the status quo in US-South Africa relations.
Walsh said that select senior advisers not only believe that the Biden Administration failed to send a strong enough message to the Government of South Africa and the African National Congress.
“They seem to think that South Africa is quickly becoming a lost cause. To try to avoid that outcome, they are willing to shake the relationship to its core. For them, it is the only bet that carries the potential payout that they desire. Unless they make that bet, they do not think that there is any hope of the Trump Administration achieving its winning aspirations in US-South Africa relations,” Walsh said.
“Aware of that reality, some interest groups have been advocating for the U.S. Government to take some pretty extreme actions. Examples include expelling the South African Ambassador to the United States, imposing a SWIFT ban on South African banks, and designating the Government of South Africa as a State sponsor of terrorism. However, those proposals have been unpalatable to many stakeholders.”
Trump also accused South Africa of having taken aggressive positions towards the US and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide against Palestinians in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.
The absence of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio from the upcoming G20 Summit in Johannesburg raises questions about future high-level engagement.
Walsh said the Congressional committees of jurisdiction have appeared to be against taking actions that would risk completely severing bilateral relations or collapsing the Government of National Unity (GNU) but over the last few weeks there were clear indications that the US Congress was thinking about pulling the trigger on one or more of those “less extreme” policy options prior to the 2025 G20 Johannesburg Summit.
He said they have appeared to be more supportive of what was perceived to be less extreme policy options such as declaring South Africa to be ineligible for preferential trade benefits under the Agoa and imposing Global Magnitsky sanctions on South African individuals and entities.
“If there are further actions taken by the Trump Administration, I would expect that one of the first to be considered will be to request that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool be recalled to South Africa. Many Republican elites feel that his position is untenable for a number of reasons,” Walsh said.
“While not everyone has a personal gripe with the ambassador, there is a general belief that the Government of South Africa selected someone who they could not reasonably expect to be able to repair the bilateral relationship. Many Republican elites therefore see his appointment as yet another piece of evidence that the Ramaphosa Administration has no desire for friendly relations with the United States.”
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) said it was of great concern that the foundational premise of Trump’s Executive Order lacked factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.
“We are concerned by what seems to be a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation. It is disappointing to observe that such narratives seem to have found favour among decision-makers in the United States of America,” Dirco said.
“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship. We reiterate that South Africa remains committed to finding diplomatic solutions to any misunderstandings or disputes.”
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