Mailbox: Ramaphosa’s Trump blunder exposes fatal flaws - and a bold opportunity for the DA

Key topics:

• Ramaphosa failed to align with Trump’s transactional foreign policy.

• Lack of empathy and respect toward the US led to diplomatic failure.

• DA urged to exit GNU and push for early elections to restore credibility.

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.

If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here.

By Keith Archibald

Dear Alec,

I listen regularly to BizNews and am an admirer of your intelligent questioning of your guests whose views are generally well worth hearing. 

In the last few days I have listened to a range of professional commentators as well as ordinary members of the public. All, even your most esteemed guests,  seem to me to have missed the very heart of the matter.   

1) Ramaphosa's strategy was abjectly poor. He ignored pointers to Trump's foreign policy that Trump himself recently displayed in his trip to the Middle East. 

2) Trump's main objectives are to promote international prosperity through peace. He is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve these goals (for example, his lifting of sanctions against Syria. This should have encouraged us. It patently did not. It was ignored or did not register with Ramaphosa.)

3) Trump is described as pursuing transaction politics. His approach would be better described as quid pro quo politics - "something for something".

4) When spending abroad, he feels duty bound to the American people to obtain a worthwhile return on their taxes, their money! He will not waste their money on hostile or badly governed countries that promise no return on US aid. 

The articulation of our case depended on our displaying our genuine commitment to three principles of all successful negotiations: 

a) affirming the unconditional mutual regard between the parties; 

b) empathy (seeing disputed issues from the other's point of view);

c) congruence (what you think, say and do, must all agree i.e. our intentions must be manifestly consistent in thought, word and deed.)

By ignoring all the above, the result was an entirely predictable failure. But worse, it was a disaster!  

Consider the following:

a) unconditional mutual regard: Cyril has been publicly and repeatedly contemptuous of Trump and America. Rassool's appointment amplified this enmity. Since nothing was done to mend matters beforehand, Cyril should have begun the meeting with a public apology to Trump. He was too proud to do so. So the meeting began on a strained note. Not good!

b) empathy: Cyril did not show any regard or appreciation for what Trump is trying to do internationally. He could have at least acknowledged the success of Trump's mission to the Middle East. He did not, fearing no doubt that this would lead to very awkward questions being asked about SA's support for Hamas and Iran. 

c) Congruence: this was totally lacking. Why would Trump be deceived by Ramaphosa's beaming face No 2, knowing that at home Ramaphosa has worn hostile face No 1 which he is very likely to resume on his return home for the benefit of his uncomprehending supporters. 

Strategic mistakes

a) Why would Trump contribute money to South Africa's fight against crime when the USA has its own crime to defeat? Why would USA taxpayers think it justifiable to spend their taxes abroad to aid a manifestly ungrateful and hostile country like ours? 

b) Trump lambasted Kamala Harris for promising to do in the future what she had failed to do in the past. Similarly, Ramaphosa's credibility on promoting peace in South Africa was destroyed when he could not explain why he had done nothing to stop Malema's "shoot the Boer! shoot the farmer!" (Incidentally, the second part shows that English speaking farmers are to be killed as well!)

c) Asking Trump where the crosses representing the murdered were planted was an appalling reply. Either he does not know his own country, or he is not well informed, or he could not care less. Even worse, to begin by sniggering at the beginning of the video was an unforgivable and heartless display of insensitivity towards the memory of those who have been murdered.    

d) To beg for US technical assistance in fighting crime and to appeal for US investments to promote growth is just ludicrous. Requiring foreign businesses to give 30% of their businesses away to blacks on their arrival and then, in addition, to expose themselves to expropriation without compensation turns an investment into a donation. 

Why would Trump (who has just taken a dozen top US CEOs to do business in the Middle East) encourage US businesses to "donate" their money to South Africa? The notion is simply preposterous! 

e) Ramaphosa said that he had come to talk about trade. Trade, however, was at the very bottom of the list of issues that Trump wanted to discuss. To try and focus on trade was a tactically pathetically inappropriate angle to pursue! 

Ramaphosa would have been better advised to say that SA acknowledged that while trade is of great importance to us, it is too small to be of much concern to the USA. Therefore he had come to hear what changes the US wanted South Africa to make in exchange for agreements on trade. He did not need to capitulate immediately but he had at least to begin discussions by showing a willingness to understand US concerns relating to SA. 

In short, he should have done what he claimed Mandela advised. Listen to the other party first.

WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?

It presents a brilliant opportunity for the DA and FF and perhaps others to abandon the GNU immediately. 

Cyril cannot invite either the EFF or MK to join a second GNU. If he did, he would lose all credibility internationally after having watched Trump's video and declaring that the ANC did not share the goals of either the EFF or MK. 

The DA, on the other hand, could justifiably claim that Ramaphosa's obstinate  resistance to change would leave SA with no friends abroad willing to invest. Without investment, no economic growth is possible. Without growth, none of our social problems can be solved. 

So urgent are these matters that we cannot wait four years for another general election to be held. Therefore in withdrawing from the GNU, the DA should  demand that the government be dissolved and a general election be held within three months.   

Such a bold move would restore the DA's credibility which has been waning in recent months. We must act urgently and without delay. It will throw the ANC into confusion for who will lead them and without Iranian money, who will finance their election campaign? 

I hope these ideas might be of use to you in suggesting to your contacts such as Helen Zille and others in the DA that an abrupt and fundamental change is required in our political thinking if we are indeed to save South Africa.