Ramaphosa heads to Washington - But will Trump buy what SA’s selling?

Key topics:Ramaphosa’s Trump meeting may expose ANC’s anti-investor policiesExpropriation, BEE, ICJ-Israel case could sour US-SA relationsDA urged to bypass ANC, strike own US trade deals for their regions.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 Matt Chancey.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s impending meeting with President Donald Trump has been heralded by many in South Africa as welcome news. “Finally, Cyril can set Trump straight on what’s really happening in South Africa.”First, I want to acknowledge that in personally visiting with Donald Trump, Ramaphosa is doing the right thing. It’s a much better plan than sending someone on record calling Trump a white supremacist, or sending a white ambassador because you think Trump will receive him more cordially than a black guy. Aside from this decision, I can’t offer Cyril much more praise. Trump’s initial “tweet” about the problems in South Africa was on February 2nd. The phone call between them took place at the end of April. And the visit is scheduled for mid-May. If the President of a country responsible for tens of $BILLIONS in trade and hundreds of thousands of jobs in my country was publicly criticizing me, expelling my diplomats, and threatening to taxing my exports into oblivion, I’d pick up the phone immediately. But since we’re used to the ANC’s policy of only doing the right thing when all other options have been exhausted, I guess we should be impressed that the meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump is slated to happen before the end of 2025.Ramaphosa strikes me as a very calm, soft-spoken man. When I listen to him, I tell myself that this is a man I would enjoy having as a maths tutor, or coach my kid's soccer team. But when it comes to governing, Cyril represents a party which is much more bellicose, vindictive, and just plain incompetent.I am sure that when Cyril meets President Trump, effusive praise will drip from his tongue like honey, and he will assure Trump that he has many white friends, and that most white people live comparatively well in South Africa, and the bad press about his country is just prejudicial misinformation.But facts are funny things. They tend to hang around like the weird uncle who always comes over for Christmas dinner, gets terribly drunk, makes everyone uncomfortable, and somehow always manages to lose his car keys and stay over for the weekend.And the fact about the ANC’s South Africa is that it has not been a good friend for America in recent history, nor has it been particularly magnanimous towards its own people.In the last year alone, Cyril’s GNU has pushed through the unpopular BELA act, which centralizes more national authority over education (something Trump has specifically reversed in America), passed the Expropriation Act, which provides the framework for legalized theft, and now lately amending BEE regulations on businesses with more than 50 employees— adding additional pain along with the other 140+ race-based laws targeting whites.Add to this the unpopular ICJ case against Israel, cozy relations with Iran, and a growing dependency on China, and we have all the makings of a VERY awkward tête-à-tête at the White House.The ANC has made South Africa very unattractive to outside investors, which is a big reason why the country is moving backwards economically. America doesn’t need trade with South Africa. But South Africa needs America. Trump knows what America can offer South Africa. What he probably wants to know from Ramaphosa is what South Africa is willing to offer the US. I don’t know who is advising President Ramaphosa on his visit, but if I were in that position, I would encourage him to announce prior to his meeting with Trump that he is scrapping the Expropriation Act. It would be a show of good will, considering this law was what triggered the February 2nd tweet.Secondly, I would tell Trump that a committee will be formed within the GNU to begin the process of rolling back BEE— especially the laws which hinder foreign investment (like Starlink, for example). Third, I would announce that South Africa is backing away from the lead in the ICJ case against Israel, passing it off to other parties to the case. Why would a country with 140+ race-based discriminatory laws and a frightening murder rate be taking Israel to court anyway? Focus, instead on providing, oh I don’t know, electricity and jobs to your people. Fourth, express support for a process of devolution of power within South Africa. Since 2024, South Africa is no longer a one-party state. Efforts to devolve powers in areas such as education, policing, and infrastructure have been consistently shot down by the ANC in the past. Cyril should express support for devolution in these areas and others to improve delivery of services and protect minority rights. If Ramaphosa does these things, a lot could change for South Africa. But I doubt he will implement any of these suggestions, mainly because his party won’t allow it. In 2024, the ANC fell below 50 percent in the polls for the first time in 30 years. This happened because of two significant schisms within the ANC: the EFF and the MK. If you add the vote percentages from all three of these parties, they roughly equal that received by the ANC in every prior national election going back to 1994. Only 4 percent of black South Africans voted for the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2024, and there is no real indication this will substantially change in the near future. The last time the DA tried to “mainstream” with the leadership of Mmusi Maimane, it was an electoral disaster.What this means is that if Cyril appears weak in the face of Trump, he risks shedding more votes to the more radical EFF and MK (especially the MK). Why? Because at the end of the day, the ANC really believes in expropriation without compensation. It really believes in BEE. It really believes whites and other minorities should be treated as guests in South Africa (not citizens), as several credible polls have shown in recent history. Don’t think the Trump Administration doesn’t know all this. This is why I believe the path forward for South Africa for the next four years is going to be very difficult if the ANC is in the driver’s seat. If the GNU holds together, and actually starts functioning as a GNU, some progress might be made. But my unsolicited advice is for parties like the DA representing mostly ethnic minorities and minority areas in South Africa to send their own delegations to the United States. Look beyond the status quo. Negotiate your own deals for the areas you control or have plurality. It is perfectly within the power of the Trump administration to decide, for example, that all farms and businesses within the DA-controlled Western Cape can export to the US with low or zero tariffs. Economic “carve outs” happen all the time— even within countries suffering under US sanctions. Several years ago, when Sudan was under heavy sanctions by the US, there were exceptions made for certain important exportable products (like gum arabic and oil) and regions were carved out where specified trade and commerce could take place (like Southern Sudan, Kordofan, Abyei, etc.)Marginalized South Africans (and regions) should not wait to be disappointed by Ramaphosa’s meeting with President Trump. Send your own delegations. Make your own deals. Start looking after your own interests, because if the last 30 years of ANC dominance and geopolitics has taught you anything, it’s that no one else will.

Ramaphosa heads to Washington - But will Trump buy what SA’s selling?

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