PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa was among the first African heads of state to publicly congratulate Donald Trump on his return to office after this week’s US elections following a four-year hiatus.
Shortly after Republican Trump declared victory against Democratic candidate and US vice-president Kamala Harris, who soon after conceded defeat, Ramaphosa said he looked forward to continuing the mutually beneficial partnership between the two countries.
South Africa will take the presidency of the G20 countries next year and the US steps in 2026.
The 2025 G20 heads of state summit is scheduled to take place in South Africa, and Ramaphosa’s office expressed optimism that Trump will make it.
Later this month, Rio de Janeiro will host this year’s G20 summit, and reports indicate that some world leaders will visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before travelling to Brazil for the annual gathering.
Ramaphosa was joined by Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, who stated that the US under Trump should be a partner of choice that attracts by the force of its example rather than by imposing its views and ways of life on others.
Trump’s return coincides with that of former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool as ambassador to the US in Washington to replace ex-Cape Town mayor and Cabinet minister Nomaindiya Mfeketo.
Rasool held the position between 2010 and 2015, when Barack Obama was US president.
Relations between South Africa and the US under Trump were not always rosy during his first term between 2017 and 2021.
In 2018, then international relations and cooperation minister Lindiwe Sisulu was forced to convey the government’s unhappiness to the US Embassy in Tshwane after Trump tweeted that he had asked his secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo, to closely study what he described as “land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers”.
Trump also claimed that the South African government was seizing land from white farmers, but this was dismissed as false information and lobbying in the US by certain groups such as AfriForum seeking to derail and frustrate the country’s land redistribution programme.
African Union (AU) Commission chairperson Moussa Faki also sent the 55-member state continental body’s congratulations, expressing hope that Trump’s second term would herald a constructive US-Africa relationship based on mutual respect, interests, and shared global values of international cooperation.
Also in 2018, the AU was forced to express its infuriation, disappointment, outrage and demand a retraction after Trump referred to some African countries as “sh*tholes”.
Also at stake is the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which allows some countries on the continent tariff-free access to US markets for certain products and is set to expire in September next year.
According to the international relations and cooperation department, trade and investment relations between the two countries take place under Agoa’s auspices, through which South Africa gains duty-free and quota-free access to the US market for value-added products.
The benefits that South Africa receives through Agoa have resulted in the creation of about 62 000 direct jobs and also created many employment opportunities in the US.
Bilateral trade between the two countries increased from R117 billion in 2011 to over R290bn in 2021, which represented 148% growth over a decade.
While much of the continent’s political players appear to be adopting a wait-and-see approach to Trump’s return, the country’s fourth largest party, the EFF, was pessimistic, stating that whoever wins US elections, all its presidents are warmongers whose contribution to the world is the indiscriminate murder of millions of people they do not like.
”Donald Trump is no different; he will continue on the very same path as his predecessors,” the organisation said this week.
The EFF said countries such as South Africa are only important to the US insofar as they contribute towards its imperial goals.
It continued: ”With a president not rooted in any idea or thought, South Africa can only be a pawn in the interests of the US. The American people got a president they so deserved. Their ignorance of the role of their own country in world affairs makes them deserving candidates of the scorn in which many underdeveloped countries hold them”.
The Freedom Front Plus, which is part of the post-May 29 elections government of national unity (GNU), described Trump’s relationship with South Africa as pragmatic and open and that in his last term he did not hesitate to take a reproaching tone with the ANC government in addressing farm murders.
FF+ MP and international relations chief spokesperson Dr. Corné Mulder predicted that South Africa's growing affection towards China could possibly strain future relations, though.
“These relations are already tense due to, among other things, South Africa's ties with Russia and its decision to report Israel to the International Court of Justice,” he said, adding that some members of the US Congress have already decided to campaign for the reconsideration of that country’s ties with South Africa.
Mulder added that the FF+ felt there is some optimism among Americans about the GNU’s prospects, but the government will have to show that its international relations are more non-aligned.