US-South Africa relations and the Trump doctrine

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JULY 2025

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by Dr Sizo Nkala

Abstract

South Africa and the United States (US) have had a dramatic diplomatic fallout since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term as the US President. Trump has outrageously accused the South African government of committing a genocide against its white citizens, unceremoniously dismissed the South African Ambassador to the US, slapped South Africa with a punitive trade tariff regime, snubbed South Africa’s G20 presidency, and contrived a controversial refugee resettlement programme exclusively for white Afrikaners in South Africa who claim that they are being persecuted. This paper seeks to understand the state of US-SA relations through the lens of the Trump Doctrine or Trumpism. Steeped as it towards isolationist, pro-Israeli, white supremacist, anti-globalisation and zero-sum tendencies, it should come as no surprise that South Africa has been a target of Trumpism. South Africa’s anti-Israel and pro-China and Russia foreign policy, its hosting of a significant number of American companies, and its trade surplus with the US put it at odds with the Trump Doctrine. The US-SA relationship appears to be going downhill without any off-ramp. It looks like it is going to be a four-year winter for a bilateral relationship that once stood as a model for broader US-Africa relations.

Introduction

Since his return to the White House for a second term, Donald Trump has taken the world by storm. He has turned the decades-old US foreign policy on its head through, among other ways, swinging a wrecking ball on multilateral institutions, pulling the US out of global agreements, pursuing protectionist economic policies, and tearing up traditional alliances and relationships with US allies. Countries like China, Canada, Mexico, and Ukraine, among others, have been caught in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. In Africa, South Africa has singularly drawn the ire of President Donald Trump. In less than three months of Trump’s return, South Africa has been the subject of hostile executive orders issued by the White House, has had its ambassador unceremoniously expelled on flimsy grounds, and slapped with punitive tariffs of up to 31% reserved for countries labelled ‘worst offenders’ in their trade relationships with the US.

That said, this paper seeks to understand the transformation of the US-South Africa relationship through the prism of Trumpism or the Trump Doctrine. It argues that South Africa’s bilateral relationship with the US is going through the shock of the Trump doctrine, which is likely to disrupt South Africa’s trade map as it threatens the country’s US$14 billion exports to the US market. The first section delves deeper into the concept of Trumpism, while the section that follows traces the South Africa-US relationship from the demise of apartheid in 1994 to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019. In the third section, the paper discusses a shift in the bilateral relationship in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting growing diplomatic friction over South Africa’s foreign policy choices. The fourth and final section trains the spotlight on the trajectory of the relationship in the eventful first three months of Trump’s second administration, with Trumpism going full steam.

Understanding Trumpism

The trajectory of the US-South Africa relationship will, for at least the next four years, be shaped, as it already is, by what observers have called Trumpism or the Trump Doctrine (Anton, 2019; Bentley & David, 2021). Loosely defined, Trumpism is a shorthand reference to the set of ideas, attitudes, beliefs, personality traits, and behavioural patterns that underpin US President Donald Trump’s domestic and international politics. The ‘America First’ mantra is the primary idea from which every other element ascribed to Trumpism derives.  America First is a clarion call to end decades of America’s exploitation under the post-1945 liberal international order of which it was ironically the chief architect (Curran, 2018; Stockman, 2025). There are several foundational grievances of Trumpism. These include the de-industrialisation of America and the loss of manufacturing jobs for the country’s mostly white male working class, whose support has been indispensable in his political success, the country’s entanglement in a network of unprofitable and ill-conceived alliances and burdensome international organisations, its involvement in unwinnable wars in far flung regions of the world, partaking in exploitative trade deals, and lax border security, which has triggered an enormous influx of immigrants (Baron 2017; Curran, 2018; Milanovic, 2024).

As such, the doctrine proposes a compendium of measures as an antidote to the aforementioned ills, with a view to Making America Great Again (MAGA). Chief among these measures are economic statecraft underpinned by economic nationalism, which involves the arbitrary and unilateral imposition of tariffs on rival and friendly countries alike, renegotiation of or withdrawal from what are perceived to be unfair trade deals, and cajoling companies who depend on the US market to invest in the country (Ettinger, 2019; Kimmage, 2025; Schweller, 2018). To reduce the burden of global governance on the US, the Trump administration has pulled out of multilateral institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The US has also cut funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which it has accused of being anti-Israel and directed the State Department to review the country’s participation in the entire gamut of intergovernmental organisations, conventions, and treaties (The White House, 2025a). The rationale being that streamlining its participation in these institutions will save some money and grant the US some latitude for action which is tantamount to putting the country first (Clarke & Ricketts, 2017).

Further, Trump has questioned the wisdom of US security alliances with countries such as South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Ukraine, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). According to the Trumpian logic, these alliances are a drain on the US resources which have to be channelled towards the security of other countries. Another symbolic but nonetheless significant expression of ‘America First’ has been the ruthless liquidation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which, since 1961, has administered the US government’s foreign assistance programmes. The Trump administration contended that the USAID was acting contrary to US national interests despite being entirely funded by American taxpayers. Further, scapegoating immigrants, especially those from poor South American countries, ramping up deportation rates and tightening border security to prevent the influx of immigrants, is a fundamental component of Trumpism (Dombrowski & Reich, 2017).

For these reasons, Trumpism has been variously described as realist, isolationist, disruptive, sovereignty-orientated, confrontational, anti-global, and unsentimental, among other things (Mahmood & Cheema, 2018; Stockman, 2025). Others have emphasised Trump’s personality traits such as unpredictability, spitefulness, narcissism, and erraticism (Bentley & David, 2021; Bew & Jones, 2018; McCarthy-Jones, 2025). Another less emphasised but equally important component of Trumpism, which is a continuity from previous administrations, is being pro-Israel. This is perhaps the only alliance which, despite its heavy exertion on the American taxpayers, has been exempt from Trump’s criticism. All these elements of the Trump Doctrine are key to understanding the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions in general and its posture towards South Africa in particular. The next section delves deeper into the evolution of the US-South Africa relationship in the past three decades, which has contributed to placing South Africa on the wrong side of Trumpism.

Post-Apartheid US-South Africa Relations: A Background

South Africa’s relatively peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994 and the compelling story of Nelson Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, drew a lot of goodwill from countries around the world including the United States. The US did not waste time in embracing the new South Africa, which it viewed as a potential strong example for democracy, stability, and economic prosperity in Africa – a region bedevilled by poverty, authoritarianism, and violent conflict (Bridgman, 1999; Ploch, 2011; Powell, 2001). To demonstrate its commitment to South Africa, the US offered the country a US$600 million trade, investment, and development package in May 1994. A month later it hosted the Investing in People conference, where the SA-US Business Development Community was formed to intensify economic ties (Bridgman, 1999). Early in 1995, a Bi-National Commission (BNC) was launched following Nelson Mandela’s visit to Washington in October 1994. Only Mexico, Russia, and Egypt had similar structures with the US at the time (Mills, 1999). The BNC was chaired by then US Vice President Al Gore and his South African counterpart Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. It would meet twice a year to discuss cooperation in several areas including human resources development, defence, agriculture, trade and investment, sustainable energy, and conservation, among others.

The fact that both countries committed to maintain lines of communication at such a high level demonstrated their mutual commitment to the bilateral relationship. South Africa was also one of only 10 countries to be included in the US Big Emerging Market initiative in 1995, which meant that it was to be promoted as an investment destination for US companies (James, 1995). In 1999 South Africa and the US signed the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).  As a result of these efforts trade between the two countries grew from US$4 billion in 1994 to US$7 billion in 2001. Economic cooperation thrived despite differences over trademark issues involving McDonald’s, Burger King, and Toys R Us, and a legal wrangle on intellectual property rights for medicines (Ostergard, 1999).

In 2000, South Africa joined the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) – a US initiative that enabled selected African countries to export a range of products to the US market duty-free. In the 21^st century economic ties grew in leaps and bounds, which saw South Africa being the US’ largest trading partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, with bilateral trade reaching US$21 billion in 2024. The US is now one of the biggest sources of foreign direct investment in South Africa, with over 600 US companies operating in various sectors of the South African economy. The US foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in South Africa stands at US$7.9 billion, while South Africa’s FDI stock in the US is US$6.25 billion (Select USA, 2024).

The two countries have also cooperated on defence and security issues. The US and South Africa worked together in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference in 1995. After being lobbied by the US, South Africa helped mobilise support from the Global South countries to support the extension of the NPT (Onderco & Van Wyk, 2019). Underwood (2008) notes that the US Department of Defense (DoD) helped with military education and training programmes for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in 1993 and 1994. The US-funded Project Phidisa provided treatment to members of the SANDF living with HIV/AIDS. South Africa was also part of the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Programme, conducted by the DoD to improve the peacekeeping capabilities of African militaries (ACOTA), while it has also participated in the Shared Accord exercises led by the US (Cook, 2013; Banerjee & Thomas, 2021; Underwood, 2008).

Further, the South African government approved the historic visit of the US aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, in 2008, while its navy participated in training exercises with a US guided missile destroyer, the USS Arleigh Burke in 2009 (Ploch, 2011). South Africa and the US worked together in the late 1990s in tackling terrorist groups in South Africa like People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), which had executed numerous bombing campaigns in South Africa. The US helped train South African personnel in investigating and preventing terrorism who later evolved into the once prominent but now-defunct Scorpions – a unit that was housed in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) tasked with investigating corruption and organised crime. South Africa expedited the extradition of Khalfan Mohammed, who was one of the masterminds of the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, to the US (Firsing, 2012a). The two countries also cooperated on the global war on terror as South Africa sympathised with the US following the 9/11 attacks.

However, South Africa was not afraid to pursue an independent foreign policy that was at times at odds with the US foreign policy. Pretoria refused to drop its bilateral relations with countries such as Iran, Cuba, and Libya – which were considered anti-American (Firsing, 2012b). At the UN, South Africa has largely voted differently from the US and its allies. It has voted in favour of 99 resolutions condemning Israel, while sponsoring 41 anti-Israel resolutions. The country has abstained from 75 of the 111 non-Israel condemnatory resolutions, voted against 17 and voted in favour of only 19. It voted against resolutions on countries like Syria, China, North Korea, and Myanmar on allegations of human rights abuses (Primorac, 2024). According to Graham (2022), in its three terms (2007-2008, 2011-2012, 2019-2020) as an elected UN Security Council member South Africa aligned with China and Russia (so-called P2) in its voting patterns against the so-called P3 (the US, France, and the UK).

In 2008, South Africa voted with Russia and China to stop targeted UN sanctions on individual members of the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. The sanctions would have included an arms embargo and the appointment of a UN Special Representative on Zimbabwe. South Africa also voted against western proposals for sanctions on Sudan and Iran, arguing that the imposition of sanctions would only serve to harden the targeted regimes. South Africa’s anti-US attitude may have been caused by the fact that the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), was still on the US terror watch list until 2008. South African government officials, including Nelson Mandela, still had to get waivers from the State Department to travel to the US (Firsing, 2012b). It was only in July 2008 that the US passed the Anti-Apartheid Visa Bill into law, which removed the ANC from the terror watch list. South Africa also strenuously opposed the establishment of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). The former Minister of Defense, Mosiuoa Lekota, refused to meet with the first AFRICOM Commander, arguing that Africa needs African solutions to African problems (Neethling, 2015).

Aid and development assistance have also been an important part of the US-South Africa relationship for the last 30 years. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency responsible for managing and distributing development assistance on behalf of the US government, set up its regional headquarters in South Africa (Primorac, 2024). Since 2001, South Africa has received over US$10 billion in aid from the US in various areas such as peace and security, food security, infrastructure, agriculture, education, governance, and health, among others. As the chart below shows, health has received 86% of the total aid, largely because of the intensity of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa, which is home to over 20% of the people living with HIV/AIDS (Mokale, 2024).

Figure 1: Distribution of US development assistance in South Africa (2001-2024)

Source: ForeignAssistance.gov, 2025

Over the years, South Africa has been the largest beneficiary of the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), having secured about US$8 billion since 2003. Under the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) the US committed to providing US$1 billion of the US$8.5 billion package meant to help South Africa reduce its dependency on coal and transition to cleaner sources of energy. The country generates more than 80% of its energy from coal. The US Power Africa programme, which was introduced by the first Trump administration in 2020, has to date supported more than 3 100 megawatts of electricity generation projects through mobilising private sector investments. The US government has disbursed US$83 million to support ICT infrastructure expansion in South Africa (Primorac, 2024). Moreover, South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare received US support to build its vaccine manufacturing capabilities. As such, although the two countries have had significant foreign policy differences, they have managed to respectfully disagree but still maintain cordial relations. However, as the next section will show, the relationship has deteriorated in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic over serious disagreements on foreign policy choices.

Post-Covid-19: Deteriorating Relations

Since 2020, the relationship between South Africa and the US has been on a downward spiral. Differences emerged over the handling of the Covid-19 global pandemic. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa criticised the western countries for hoarding Covid-19 vaccines, leaving Africa and other regions without any supplies. The United States was one of the biggest hoarders of the Covid-19 vaccines (Chironda, 2021). Upon the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022, the US and South Africa adopted different positions, with the US openly supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia while South Africa adopted a neutral position and refused to condemn or isolate Russia (Seekings & Saunders, 2022). South Africa’s decision to hold military exercises with Russia and China on the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine did not go down well with Washington. For the first time, the White House expressed its disapproval of South Africa’s actions, saying it was going to present a diplomatic challenge to South Africa (Carter, 2023). The South African government defended the move, saying the exercise was pre-planned and was a normal part of its relations with Russia and China. Washington demonstrated its growing frustration with Pretoria’s foreign policy when, in March 2023, some members of the US House of Representatives introduced a resolution seeking a thorough review of US-South Africa relations in light of the country’s joint military exercises with China and Russia. Although the resolution did not pass both houses of Congress at the time, it reflected a growing disillusion in Capitol Hill with South Africa’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war (Fabricius, 2023).

In an unprecedented press conference two months later, then US Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety made astonishing claims, saying that a sanctioned Russian cargo ship was loaded with ammunition and weapons at the Simon’s Town naval base in Cape Town. The Ambassador warned that “the arming of the Russians is extremely serious, and we do not consider this issue to be resolved.” However, the South African government denied the claims, saying they were not backed by any evidence (Fihlani & Moloney, 2023). Although an independent inquiry into the matter later found no evidence to support the Ambassador’s claims, it was not enough to stop the deterioration of the bilateral relationship (Gregory, 2023). Mr Brigety’s accusations seemed to have galvanised an anti-South Africa sentiment in the US Congress, which was demonstrated when a bipartisan group of US legislators wrote a letter to the Joe Biden administration in June 2023 asking it to move the AGOA Forum, which was due to be held in September of that year, from South Africa because of its deepening relationship with Russia. The legislators said they were “seriously concerned that hosting the 2023 AGOA Forum in South Africa would serve as an implicit endorsement of South Africa’s damaging support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” (Al Jazeera, 2023).

The relationship was tested again when South Africa took Israel, a staunch ally of the United States, to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 accusing it of the intention to commit genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza. The White House through the National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, swiftly dismissed South Africa’s allegations, saying they were “counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever” (Feinberg, 2024). This was the strongest public rebuke yet from a White House that had strived to choose its words carefully in expressing its displeasure over South Africa’s foreign policy choices. In June 2024, the House of Representatives voted to pass amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would require the Biden administration to make a determination on whether South Africa’s foreign policy decisions undermine the US national security and foreign policy interests. The White House would also be obliged to give a full report of the country’s defence cooperation with South Africa (Fabricius, 2024). It seems the amendments were part of preparing the grounds for South Africa’s possible disqualification from AGOA, whose eligibility criteria includes that beneficiaries must not act in a manner that undermines US foreign policy and national security interests. South Africa is the biggest beneficiary of the AGOA scheme, exporting goods worth US$3 billion annually to the US under the arrangement. Nonetheless, the amendments did not make it to the final National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate in December 2024. South Africa had narrowly escaped yet another comeuppance in the US Capitol. But after the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the Republicans’ victory in the Senate and House of Representatives elections, South Africa’s fortunes in terms of its relationship with the US took a nosedive.

Enter Donald Trump 2.0: The Breakdown in Bilateral Relations from Domestic Politics to Foreign Policy

US-South Africa relations under the second Donald Trump administration got off to a rocky start. This is due in large part to the proximity of a small group of right-wing conservative figures such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Joe Pollack – who all have roots in apartheid South Africa – to the Trump administration. Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who donated almost US$280 million to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and Joe Pollak, the Senior Editor-at-Large of the ultra-conservative pro-Trump Breitbart News, who is currently touted as the next US Ambassador to South Africa, have been very vocal in their criticism of the South African government’s policies (Davis, 2024). They have both peddled unsubstantiated claims of white genocide and confiscation of property in South Africa. This is a narrative which Trump has advanced as a pretext to his hostile actions towards South Africa. While Peter Thiel, another tech billionaire who moved to apartheid South Africa as a child and reportedly supported apartheid policies as a university student in the US and co-founded Pay Pal with Musk, is not in the Trump administration, his former mentee is the current Vice President of the US James D Vance (Matthews, 2024).

As such, the rapid succession of diplomatic fallouts between South Africa and the US since Trump’s return to the White House comes as no surprise. It all started with the US President Donald Trump expressing his disapproval of South Africa’s Expropriation Act, which was signed into law by the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the 23^rd of January 2025 – just three days after Trump’s return to office. The law gives the government the power to confiscate privately owned land for public purposes such as building public infrastructure and for public interests like land reform. Although the law stresses that those whose land is confiscated will be compensated at market rates, it also mentions that nil compensation may be possible in cases where land is being held for speculative purposes with no developments, the land has been abandoned by the owner, and where the value of the land is equivalent to or less than state investment in the land (South African Government, 2024).

What looked like a purely domestic issue soon made global headlines when, on the 2^nd of February, Trump posted a statement on the social media platform, Truth Social, saying that "South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY. I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!" (Bartlett, 2025). This diplomatic tension showed no signs of abating when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on the X platform on the 5^th of February announcing that he “will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, and sustainability’. In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism” (Rubio, 2025). South Africa hosted the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting on the 20^th of February and Secretary Rubio was not in attendance as he had indicated in his post. In apparent reference to the US, President Ramaphosa made defiant remarks in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on the 6^th of February, lamenting the “rise of nationalism and protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause”. He continued, saying that “We will not be bullied” (Davis, 2025).  

The plot thickened when, on the 7^th of February, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Addressing the Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa” (The White House, 2025). The Order accused the South African government of planning to seize the land owned by the white Afrikaner ethnic group through the controversial Expropriation Bill. Apparently referring to legislation such as the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act (BBBEE) of 2013, the Employment Equity Act of 1998, and the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act of 2024, which were passed to address the injustices of apartheid, the executive order went on to charge Ramaphosa’s administration with promoting racial discrimination policies against the white minority in South Africa in employment, education, and business and promoting hate-filled rhetoric against the said minorities. President Trump was also aggrieved by South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it accused Israel of committing a genocide in the Gaza strip in Palestine, and Pretoria’s close relations with Iran.

As a result, the order pulled the plug on US aid and assistance to South Africa. It also offered to promote the resettlement in the US of members of the Afrikaner ethnic group “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation” (The White House, 2025b).  Asked a few days later about whether he was going to attend the G20 Summit to be hosted by South Africa at the end of 2025 in light of the accusations in the executive order, President Trump said “we will see what happens, but the South African government is very bad and very dangerous to a lot of people. There are tremendous things going on including the confiscation of property and worse … much worse than that” (Forbes Breaking News, 2025). He made all these allegations without citing any evidence. In its response, the South African government expressed disappointment at the order’s factual inaccuracies and its failure to “recognise South Africa's profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid” (South African Government, 2025b).

At the end of February 2025, the US permanently suspended all of its aid programmes to South Africa including the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which funded about 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS budget (Jones & Ngcobo, 2025). The decision to permanently suspend aid in South Africa came after President Ramaphosa, together with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, the Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, and Varsha Gandikota, the coordinator of Progressive International, published an article in the influential Foreign Policy magazine reiterating their condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, challenging Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza strip, and committing to ensure that Israel is held accountable for its actions (Ramaphosa et al, 2025). The article confirmed that South Africa was not going to drop its case against Israel at the ICJ.

Matters came to a head on the 15^th of March 2025 when South Africa’s Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was declared persona non grata by Secretary Rubio after the critical remarks he made about the US government while participating in a webinar organised by a South African thinktank. Ambassador Rasool accused Donald Trump of spearheading a white supremacist movement, citing the Make America Great Again (MAGA) grouping in the US, which propelled Trump to the White House. Rubio posted on his X account, saying that Rasool was no longer welcome in the US and that he was a race-baiting politician who hates America and Donald Trump (Looker, 2025). It was the first time an ambassador was expelled between the two countries, thus marking the lowest point in their relationship.

South Africa was also one of the 57 countries to be slapped with Donald Trump’s punitive reciprocal tariffs. Trump argued that these countries’ trade surpluses with the US were due to the tariff and non-tariff barriers they impose on US exports. South Africa had a trade surplus of over US$8 billion in its bilateral trade with the US. Under the reciprocal tariffs, South Africa’s exports to the US would be subjected to a 31% tariff rate, which was going to make the country’s exports significantly less competitive. However, the reciprocal tariffs were paused for 90 days on the 9^th of April, with the Trump administration calling on affected countries to negotiate trade deals with the US. If the state of the bilateral relationship of late is anything to go by, it is clear that South Africa will not be in the front of the queue for a trade deal with the US.

Conclusion

The Trump administration has plunged the US-South Africa bilateral relationship into an uncharted territory. From being the poster child of the US liberal international order in sub-Saharan Africa for the past 30 years as evidenced by Washington’s conscious efforts to cultivate trade, investment, and aid ties, South Africa has suddenly become a rogue state that undermines US foreign policy interests and disregards human rights in the eyes of Donald Trump. South Africa is now described in terms traditionally reserved for countries like Sudan, Angola, and Zimbabwe, which have long been the objects of America’s ire. More than anything, South Africa is paying for being on the wrong side of Trumpism. The country runs a healthy trade surplus of over US$8 billion with the US, is home to over 20% of the total US foreign direct investment stock in sub-Saharan Africa and is a major beneficiary of the US aid projects such as PEPFAR and AGOA. All these are cardinal sins in the zero-sum logic underpinning the Trump doctrine of America First. Of course, Trump’s hostility to South Africa has also been exacerbated by a coterie of conservative figures like Elon Musk, Joe Pollak, David Sacks, and Peter Thiel, who have roots in South Africa and are vocal critics of the South African government’s socio-economic transformation policies. This group enjoys proximity to President Trump, and one would be hard-pressed to think they have no input into Trump’s false narrative on South Africa. Responding to Trumpism will be a difficult task for Pretoria’s foreign policy mandarins. South Africa will have to balance maintaining its domestic and foreign policy autonomy vis-à-vis Washington while taking care not to burn bridges with an important economic partner.  

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This report has been published by the Inclusive Society Institute

The Inclusive Society Institute (ISI) is an autonomous and independent institution that functions independently from any other entity. It is founded for the purpose of supporting and further deepening multi-party democracy. The ISI’s work is motivated by its desire to achieve non-racialism, non-sexism, social justice and cohesion, economic development and equality in South Africa, through a value system that embodies the social and national democratic principles associated with a developmental state. It recognises that a well-functioning democracy requires well-functioning political formations that are suitably equipped and capacitated. It further acknowledges that South Africa is inextricably linked to the ever transforming and interdependent global world, which necessitates international and multilateral cooperation. As such, the ISI also seeks to achieve its ideals at a global level through cooperation with like-minded parties and organs of civil society who share its basic values. In South Africa, ISI’s ideological positioning is aligned with that of the current ruling party and others in broader society with similar ideals.

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