RW Johnson: Between a rock and a hard place – South Africa’s stand off with Trump

Key topics.ANC activists fear US could trigger regime change in South Africa.US-SA relations worsen due to ANC's foreign policy missteps and provocations.South Africa's financial vulnerability makes it susceptible to US sanctions..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..By RW Johnson ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Several ANC activists have expressed worries that the current denouement in US-South Africa relations might see the US conspire to effect regime change in South Africa. Some will simply dismiss such concerns as the usual ANC paranoia but it is worth examining these concerns properly. After all, the Pretoria government would be extremely vulnerable to such an attempt. Its armed forces have virtually disintegrated and its police force is corrupt and ineffective. And the polls suggest that the ANC, at least, is hardly popular. If the government was deposed by a coup of some sort who is to say that the coup leaders would not be greeted as heroes in many townships ?.But first, let us take a step back. Why are ANC activists worried about a breakdown of US-SA relations ? After all, for more than a decade the ANC government has acted as if it wanted to provoke and upset Washington and no one in the ANC spoke against this or warned of the consequences so presumably they liked what they saw and heard. .The answer is three-fold. First, the ANC has hurriedly discovered that the US is its second biggest trading partner and that it's a bad mistake to antagonise it. Already the US cuts in aid have been a significant blow to South Africa and this has resulted from a mere pull-back in American generosity. As yet the US has inflicted no sanctions or other blows – though it easily could. .Secondly, the ANC remembers only too well how its championing of the anti-apartheid cause made it universally popular. While the Communist bloc and the Third World lavished aid upon it, it was equally popular in Europe and on American campuses. So it feels bad for South Africa now to be actively unpopular in America and have its ambassador expelled in disgrace. Hence Ramaphosa's illusion that all that needs to happen is have some South African emissary "explain" everything to Washington to make everything all right again. .Finally, South Africa long ago embraced the American way of life. Whether it be fast food, American films and music, beauty competitions, fascination with golf, teenage fads, black chic or habits of speech, South Africa, black or white, has happily aped America. Culturally South Africa is at least as much influenced by America as by Britain. Thus to find the country at odds with America is uncomfortable and unsettling both for the elite and at grass roots. In comparison the ANC's anti-Americanism is merely skin-deep..The fact is that South Africa has drifted into its current exposed and dangerous position due to a mixture of extreme naivete and reckless irresponsibility. Just consider. South Africa is deeply indebted and the government is close to bankruptcy. If Trump decided to use targeted sanctions against ANC leaders he could do immense financial harm to Ramaphosa and others. The effect on financial markets and the Rand and on capital flight would be large-scale and immediate. .Read more: 🔒 Worldview: Trump nominates conservative media critic as US ambassador to South Africa.If, however, Trump forbade US financial institutions to buy South Africa's government bonds – it just needs his signature for it to happen – few institutions anywhere would want to hold them. And 25% of our debt is held by foreigners. In effect the government could be forced into a debt default by such a move – and if Trump wanted to, he could also veto the IMF from bailing Pretoria out. The result would be a complete financial meltdown, and the government's fall would be just one of the minor results of that. There is no need for ANC activists to dream up conspiracies involving CIA-inspired regime change. Trump could simply bring regime change here by signing a few executive orders. .How did the government allow the country – and itself – to be exposed to such colossal danger ? Partly the problem is just the sheer lack of education and skills among the ANC decision-makers. Almost certainly none of them understood enough about the international political economy to realise the risks they were running. When one reads that in approaching the International Court of Justice Naledi Pandor took advice, inter alia, from Ronnie Kasrils one realises that there really were no grown-ups in the room. There is now a serious prospect that the government will be forced into the huge and public humiliation of having to withdraw its case at the ICJ..In part the ANC was lulled by its own parochial view that the anti-apartheid struggle and Mandela had earned it a sort of permanent hall pass in international relations. In addition it had escaped American censure during the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations partly because Democratic presidents pay a great deal of attention to the crucial black vote, which gives the Congressional Black Caucus a powerful voice while the Democrats are in power. And while members of that caucus have been disturbed and bewildered by some of South Africa's foreign policy moves, there was still a residual reluctance to see the US at odds with Mandela's country. .With time, of course, that factor has weakened – there is no such thing as a permanent hall pass – and sooner or later South Africa was bound to face a more hard-nosed Republican administration. In retrospect South Africa was also lucky that George W. Bush was a pretty liberal Republican and that he was overwhelmingly distracted by the sequels to 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan and then the global financial crisis. Bush was willing to accept South Africa's good will as a given and he was extremely generous in initiating the PEPFAR funding for HIV/AIDS in Africa. All of which meant that the neo-cons in the Bush administration never got their teeth into South Africa..Some credit must, too, go to Thabo Mbeki. who had a better understanding of international relations than his successors. None of South Africa's really dangerous moves involving Russia, China and Iran took place while he was at the helm. Only when Zuma took over did South Africa join BRICS and develop a much closer relationship with Russia. This has continued under Ramaphosa – indeed, Ramaphosa made the crucial move of countermanding his foreign minister's denunciation of Russia for invading Ukraine. However, that flatly contradicted the UN Charter, which South Africa has sworn to uphold..There were clear warning signs of trouble during the Biden administration – most notably Ambassador Brigety's outburst about the Lady R and, perhaps more significantly, the demand in the US Senate for a review of relations with South Africa. .In addition, Senator Chris Coons (Dem.-Delaware) made it clear that he was extremely disturbed by South Africa's behaviour in foreign affairs. This followed South Africa holding joint naval exercises with Russia and China in February 2023 on the anniversary of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Coons suggested that South Africa's position in AGOA be immediately reviewed..Coons was not only close to Biden (who had been the senior Senator for Delaware) and an important member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but he had been a knowledgeable and sympathetic friend of South Africa, where as a young man he had worked as a volunteer for the South African Council of Churches. Indeed, Coons claimed that his revulsion against apartheid had played a key role in his becoming a Democrat. .When Coons spoke out red lights should have been flashing in Pretoria because if South Africa was attracting criticism from the likes of Coons it really was in trouble on Capitol Hill. By that juncture a Republican presidential victory already seemed entirely possible and some action against South Africa would then become inevitable. But this warning too was disregarded. .President Ramaphosa has said that South Africa and the US are bound to enter into dialogue and that he is confident that they can then resume a productive relationship. This seems absurdly wishful. Probably the best that Pretoria can hope for is that it loses its AGOA privileges and that Washington thereafter simply ignores it. There is no indication at all that Trump wants a dialogue with South Africa and it seems more likely that he will want to make an example of it to show other countries that it isn't wise to provoke Washington. The only way Pretoria can head that off is by pre-emptively reversing some of its policies, for example by leaving BRICS, abandoning its wish to diminish the role of the dollar and withdrawing its case against Israel at the ICJ. .Any such steps would be seen as a complete humiliation by the ANC, and there would be great opposition to them within the party – for most of the ANC still does not realise just how serious the situation now is. Faced with that, Ramaphosa is likely to prevaricate, but that too would be dangerous. It is only too likely that if there is no movement on the South African side, Trump will carry out some further sanctions as a brutal reminder. .The nomination of L.Brent Bozell as the US ambassador to South Africa should be taken as a serious warning. Bozell is a hard-line conservative, his career shows few signs of a man seeking consensus or compromise, and he is a strong supporter of Israel. He is likely to find the South African government ethos utterly beyond the pale and it is not difficult to imagine him advising Washington that further pressure on Pretoria is required. Pretoria should be watching the Senate hearings on Bozell's nomination very carefully because they will likely reveal which way the wind is blowing. That said, Pretoria has already missed or disregarded so many warning signals that it is difficult to believe, even at this late and critical juncture, that it will begin to behave with care and prudence..Read also:.🔒 Trump pressures Putin to end Ukraine war or face sanctionsDonald MacKay on SA foreign policy: Impact of AGOA is overstated, neutral stance in SA's best interestRewriting politics from the ground up: The rise of civic governance in South Africa

RW Johnson: Between a rock and a hard place – South Africa’s stand off with Trump

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