Trump’s missteps: South Africa, nuclear power and Iran – Andrew Kenny

Key topics:.South Africa has denied military and nuclear ties with Iran, despite accusations.Trump's claims about South Africa's stance on Israel and Iran are criticized.South Africa's nuclear expertise is seen as stronger than Iran's power capabilities..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 Andrew Kenny*.Nuclear power, nuclear weapons, South Africa, and Iran are the subject of yet another unfortunate and potentially damaging row between the USA and South Africa..On 7 February, in an executive order, President Trump said, "South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military and nuclear arrangements.".The first part of this statement is true, the second part nonsense. The response of South African Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, was needlessly aggressive and a bit confused. Speaking of possible vendors for more nuclear power in South Africa, he said, "We can't have a contract that says Iran or Russia must not bid, we can't have that condition" and "If they are the best in terms of the offer on the table, we'll take any (country).".That is correct, of course, but I don't think Trump made any mention of Russia, and indeed since he has become so chummy with Putin, he would probably be happy to see SA and Russia working together on nuclear power. (So would I.) Politics aside, I can't see why Iran would be of any use to SA on nuclear power. Our nuclear power facilities and expertise are better than theirs, and Iran has no ability to build nuclear power stations..Horrified.I would have voted for Trump in November but I am horrified at some of the things he is doing now. His plan for Gaza was mad and malevolent. His wilful misunderstanding of the ANC's dreadful Expropriation Act served only to promote it. In Ukraine he is betraying President Zelensky, humiliating and vilifying him, while sucking up to President Putin, who is wholly responsible for the atrocious invasion of 24 February 2022..I am embarrassed because I believe the deal that Putin and Trump want for Ukraine is actually the only workable deal now. I support it. Russia keeps Crimea and part of the Donbas, Ukraine vows never to join NATO, and Russia gives full recognition to an independent, sovereign Ukraine and signs a peace treaty with her. The war ends. No more killing and destruction. But why blame and demean Zelensky?.Now Trump talks this nonsense on South Africa making "military and nuclear arrangements" with Iran..South Africa is a nuclear exemplar, the moral leader of the world on nuclear matters. She is the only nation to have developed nuclear weapons and then renounced them (and believe me, they would have worked – worked as well as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima)..South Africa is open to all inspections from the international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). There is no question of South Africa ever trying to get nuclear weapons again. Since February 1990, when the President de Klerk ordered our nuclear weapons to be scrapped, South Africa has been completely consistent about nuclear matters. The USA has not been at all consistent about Iran and nuclear matters..Dangerous.Iran is a dangerous Shia dictatorship, oppressing women and supporting terrorism throughout the Middle East. But Iran played no part at all in the terror attack on New York on 11 September 2001. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni dictatorship, with a horrible record on human rights, was strongly linked with the attack. Yet the USA never attacked or even criticised Saudi – in fact, sucked up to her..Read more: 🔒 Without US leadership, 'The West' faces collapse: Andreas Kluth.In the war between Iraq and Iran, which was started by Iraq, the USA supported Iraq and gave her weapons. Then in 2003, the USA changed her mind and invaded Iraq, knowing full well that Iraq, too, had had nothing to do with 9/11. They overthrew President Saddam and replaced him with something much worse, unleashing chaos, terror, bloodshed, and religious fanaticism over the whole region. Iran, swearing it only wanted to develop nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, developed several nuclear facilities. It has one operating nuclear power station, at Bushehr, a Russian VVER (an excellent reactor), but is developing more..The West was worried that Iran really wanted nuclear weapons. Through Secretary of State John Kerry, the USA began negotiating with Iran for a deal in which Iran would renounce all intentions of developing nuclear weapons in return for the USA helping her develop nuclear power and ending sanctions. In July 2015, President Obama announced that the deal had been concluded. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was a very good deal. It was the best thing that John Kerry ever did (the only good thing he ever did?) In 2018 President Trump cancelled the deal..Horrible deal.Trump said, "This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made." He said it would increase the chances of Iran's getting nuclear weapons and would not bring peace. He was dead wrong. By ending JCPOA, Trump increased the chance of Iran's getting nuclear weapons. The pact allowed full inspection of all Iran's nuclear facilities. It is very easy for any nuclear inspector to see if nuclear fuel is being made for power or for weapons..Weapons require a far higher degree of separation. The fuel going into Koeberg and the waste coming out are both useless for weapons. The ending of JCPOA gave the Iranians, if they really did want nuclear weapons, more opportunity to develop them in secret, although some inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continue but not at the same level as under JCPOA..The more nations that have approved nuclear power, the less will be the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, simply because all approved nuclear power nations have to operate in the open, in the full glare of international nuclear inspectors. (Israel has nuclear weapons but no nuclear power. Sweden, Finland, Japan, Spain, Belgium, Holland and others have nuclear power but no nuclear weapons.).Nuclear power is the safest and cleanest energy we know; it is highly reliable and sustainable; it is always economical and in many countries, including South Africa, the cheapest source of electricity. (Solar and wind are always the most expensive.) We have a chronic shortage of reliable power and need a lot more nuclear power..As Mantashe says, we should invite bids from every nuclear vendor around the world, following due process, being completely open and free at every step, hiding nothing from the public. However, we should only consider bids from a vendor with a proven reactor design and with a recent, continuous record of building stations on time and on budget..This would limit the vendor countries to Japan, China, South Korea and Russia. France did very well in the past but stumbled badly in recent decades. The USA has a very good reactor design in the AP1000 but is not very good at building it. (China is.) My favourite would be Russia, with her superb VVER reactors. (The Chernobyl RBMK reactors were a disaster waiting to happen. The design was terrible. They will never be built again.).Aggressive position.On the political aspect, Trump was right to say, "South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice." South Africa under the ANC has an appalling record on human rights, siding with horrible African tyrants who slaughter poor black people, while pretending to care about injustices far away, out of Africa..The ANC could have arrested Sudan's genocidal leader, Omar al-Bashir when he visited SA in 2015. The genocide of black Africans in Sudan was considered the worst crime against humanity at the time. Up to 300,000 black people had been slaughtered by Bashir's government for the crime of being black. An international court asked the ANC to arrest him. They didn't. In January 2024, the new genocidal killer in Sudan, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, visited President Ramaphosa in Pretoria. Ramaphosa welcomed him with a big friendly smile and called him "Your Excellency". Not a word of criticism from Ramaphosa, not a word of sympathy for the murdered black Africans. Ramaphosa obviously condones this genocide of black people..But when Israel retaliated to the sadistic attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023, begging Palestinian civilians to move to safe places, the ANC accused Israel of "genocide" in an international court. This is not only hypocrisy but evil hypocrisy. The ANC cheered for Hamas when it raped, tortured and killed civilians in Israel. It supports Iran's every hostile stance and act against the West. (Tim Flack, in The Daily Friend, 21 Feb 2025, has an excellent and informative article on this, in which the title says much: "ANC's foreign policy trainwreck: Blaming AfriForum, ignoring Islamic revolutionary elephant in the room.") Many serious international commentators say that Iran financed the ANC's court case against Israel..Trump is right here. A pity he is wrong in so many other instances. A bigger pity that South Africa is led by the lying, corrupt, immoral ANC, which hates the West and cares nothing for poor black people..Read also:.🔒 The Economist: Why are so many Israeli Jews spying for Iran?🔒 In under two weeks, rebels topple 24-year Syrian dictatorship backed by Iran, RussiaSA's risky balancing act: Ties with Iran, US tensions, and Trump's influence – Dr. Iraj Abedian.*Andrew Kenny is a writer, an engineer and a classical liberal..This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission

Trump’s missteps: South Africa, nuclear power and Iran – Andrew Kenny

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