{"id":841142,"date":"2025-04-15T16:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T21:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/us-and-south-africa-balancing-national-pride-with-economic-interest\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T16:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T21:12:21","slug":"us-and-south-africa-balancing-national-pride-with-economic-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/us-and-south-africa-balancing-national-pride-with-economic-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"US and South Africa: Balancing national pride with economic interest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The expulsion of Pretoria’s ambassador to Washington has added urgency to calls for South Africa to salvage its relationship w<\/a>ith the United States in a balance between national pride and vital investment.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump’s decision this month to send Ebrahim Rasool packing was the lowest point in ties that have been souring over a range of issues, notably the Israel-Gaza conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Under pressure to find a replacement for Rasool who could be more palatable to Washington, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that South Africa had a lot riding on the appointment.<\/p>\n

“The United States is the second largest trading partner to South Africa, so therefore we need to have top class representation in the US,” he said.<\/p>\n

Economic ‘threats’<\/h2>\n

Rasool’s defiance – saying he had no regrets for comments about supremacism that led to his expulsion and wore his persona non grata label as a “badge of dignity” – has drawn some support at home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump was “punishing South Africa” over the Israel-Gaza conflict, African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Fikile Mbalula said last week.<\/p>\n

“We are under no illusion about the intentions of those who seek to bully us into submission with threats of unleashing economic mayhem,” Mbalula wrote in the local Daily Maverick.<\/p>\n

But calls are growing for South Africa to swallow its pride in its own interests, with US aid and investment supporting thousands of jobs in a country burdened by a 32 percent unemployment rate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the line is the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA)<\/a> deal which provides duty-free access to the US market for some African products and is up for renewal in September.<\/p>\n

“This is a 25-year trade relationship which has benefited South Africa to the tune of tens of billions of dollars,” said Richard Morrow, analyst at the Brenthurst Foundation.<\/p>\n

“It is causing a lot of concern within the government, which then provides the Trump administration with tremendous leverage.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The lashing from the United States should not be a surprise considering some of Pretoria’s foreign policy choices, including its ties with Iran, he said.<\/p>\n

“South Africa on the one hand is reaching for the reset button in terms of relations with America, but with the other hand it’s shooting itself in the foot.”<\/p>\n

The presidency needed to find a new envoy with less “ideological baggage” than Rasool and who may even be “very different from who they traditionally would have appointed”, he told AFP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Managing’ a new low\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said neither country could really afford to continue escalating the tension.<\/p>\n

“They both need each other,” he said.<\/p>\n

An example was that South Africa, as a member of the BRICS grouping of major emerging economies, “has a role to play in advancing some of the interests that the US may have in those spaces.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The possible appointment of Bozell as US ambassador could add to the indignation about the attitude of Trump’s administration, says Tendai Mbanje, Pretoria-based governance expert.<\/p>\n

But South Africa needs to “manage” this and any other conflict that may arise, he says.<\/p>\n

“South Africa is required to exercise maximum and calculated diplomacy to manage the relationship with the USA in the next four years,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Both nations need each other in trade and international cooperation. Win-win situations should be pursued for\u00a0mutual\u00a0benefit.”<\/p>\n

AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Margarete Block
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The expulsion of Pretoria’s ambassador to Washington has added urgency to calls for South Africa to salvage its relationship with the United States in a balance between national pride and vital investment. US President Donald Trump’s decision this month to send Ebrahim Rasool packing was the lowest point in ties that have been souring over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":841143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2084,683],"tags":[14302,7070],"class_list":{"0":"post-841142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"category-south","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-south"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}