SA shows signs of economic revival as growth surges amid diplomatic shift with Trump's US

The news from South Africa in the past week has been largely positive. Economic reports indicate that South African economic growth rates will exceed 1% for the first time in recent history, and that the country has been taken off the Financial Action Task Force’s dreaded “Grey List”. Gold priced above $4,000 per ounce appears to have revived South Africa’s mining sector.

We will see if these trends continue and perhaps reverse punishing job losses in the automotive and agricultural sectors resulting from newly limited access to the US market because of the African Growth and Opportunity Act’s (Agoa’s) expiration and continued punitive tariff levels imposed by the Trump Administration.  

Read more: Agoa has officially lapsed but US mulls one-year extension 

But last week also registered a significant improvement in diplomatic relations between the US and South Africa. For one, there is strong speculation that President Cyril Ramaphosa intends to appoint Dr Alistair Ruiters to fill the long-vacant post of South Africa’s ambassador to Washington.

Ruiters is an experienced trade diplomat with a deep background in investment promotion. These are skill sets that have not been prioritised by the recent South African emissaries to the US, even though the US is South Africa’s second biggest trade partner after China, and third biggest investor.

Read more: ‘Our greatest asset’ — Alistair Ruiters is hot favourite to be SA’s next ambassador to US

However, while Ruiters’ estimable talents in trade diplomacy have been on display over the past several weeks as the Department of Trade and Industry’s chief negotiator with the US, he will have to get up to speed on political diplomacy, as that remains the key obstacle to putting the relationship between our two countries back on an even footing.  

These political factors were addressed by Leo Brent Bozell III, US Ambassador-designate to South Africa, in testimony during his confirmation hearing on Thursday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bozell comes from conservative royalty as the nephew of both Senator James Buckley and the father of the American conservative movement, William F Buckley.

His testimony was a reboot of the Trump Administration’s litany of complaints against South Africa: the genocide case that South Africa brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ); SA’s military/naval exercises with China, Russia and Iran, alleged white Afrikaner genocide and South Africa’s leadership in the BRICS movement as a tool to undermine US global economic hegemony.

He also noted that rampant corruption had weakened governance and imperilled economic growth. There is little doubt that many South Africans share this view.

Read more: Trump’s pick for ambassador to SA evades questions on race-based voting and refugee policies

However, while Bozell’s written testimony gave the impression he needed to remain within the limits of the White House’s positions, his response to follow-up questions by senators evidenced a willingness to reboot relations, should he be confirmed. Democratic Senators Chris van Hollen and Chris Murphy criticised Bozell’s anti-ANC statements of 40 years ago and then hammered him on the Trump Administration’s declaration of alleged white Afrikaner genocide, which drove the policy to extend a special immigration status based solely on race.

Bozell evaded these questions but not without some difficulty and awkwardness (for example, he confused magnesium with manganese), evidencing a failure to anticipate this line and tone of questioning in Capitol Hill’s toxic political environment and perhaps demonstrating a somewhat compromised mental acuity given his age and lack of diplomatic experience. 

Bozell’s willingness to reboot these relations was more positively on view in his engagement with Senator Mike Lee, where he championed US investment in critical minerals and rare earths processing to create needed employment in South Africa and provide security for supply chains long dominated by China. 

Read more: Let’s not call these Afrikaners refugees — they’re background extras in Maga’s noisy scam

A senior US Senate staff member noted that BEE was not a centre of attention in the hearing and that perhaps relations between our two countries were not as bad as they seemed. Notwithstanding the above, South Africa still faces an uphill battle to peel back some of the impediments to market access in the US. 

As the White House has dropped its opposition to all trade liberalisation initiatives, Agoa’s renewal is no longer a matter of “if” but “when”.  Yet, given the government shutdown and the traffic jam of legislation that has piled up, Agoa will struggle to find a moving legislative vehicle to append itself to.

Bozell’s testimony also had to have White House clearance and is evidence that President Trump is disinclined to lower the high level of reciprocal tariffs imposed on South Africa until he gets some measure of satisfaction that there is movement on the International Court of Justice case, the protection of white Afrikaners who are supposedly under threat, and curtailing of South Africa’s advocacy for a new economic world order. DM

Anthony Carroll is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.