Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane. (David Harrison)
South Africa must strategically reset its diplomatic and economic approach by diversifying its global partnerships while maintaining its critical relationship with the United States, political leaders and academics said at a forum this week.
Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane said at the Durban University of Technology on Tuesday that the world was in turbulence, and with the re-election of US President Donald Trump and his subsequent tariff wars, South Africa faced “fairly chronic uncertainty” regarding its economic fortunes.
“Many people ask: why would President Trump have such a profound focus on South Africa as a trading partner to the US relative to their own size of economy? We’re not in the top 10 in terms of our own exports to the US but for us they represent the second highest trading partner,” Maimane said.
“We are net benefactors of the trade balance between us and the US, our focus being on vehicles, iron, steel, aluminium and agriculture. These products are inherently needed for the economy to be able to fly, for the number of jobs that he describes, the billions and billions of US dollars that would be traded between the two countries mean that whether you and I accept it or not, our relations with the US happen to be crucial.”
He noted numerous defiant posts on social media platform X that “the US can go jump” — a response to the fractious relationship between the two countries mainly over what the Trump administration says is the persecution of white South Africans.
Maimane cautioned: “I would argue the fact that before you become so bold about that statement, be conscious about the extent of job losses that a US exit would mean for South Africa.”
He said relations with South Africa had not been top of mind for many US legislators over the past decade.
“So the culmination of President Trump is not an accident, it is a function of the fact that I believe as a government we neglected our relations with the US with almost the underlying mantra that to be anti-west is to be progressive. That thesis itself has translated in a number of key actions that have meant in some ways our relationship with the USA has suffered.”
Maimane noted that South Africa did not have an ambassador to the US when President Cyril Ramaphosa met Trump in Washington DC last month.
“[South Africa] still does not have an ambassador to the US and ultimately our trade envoy who was recently appointed was not in the room,” he said.
“But perhaps maybe, as Africa, we need neither look West nor East. We need to look forward and therefore we need to begin to reset. And this is where I stand with President Ramaphosa on our relations with the US. To achieve that, a number of critical steps need to be taken. We need to reset our diplomatic outlook.”
Maimane said Africa’s 1.4 billion citizens and mineral wealth would drive the global transition into a greener economy.
“Without a shadow of a doubt Africa will be what the next decade will be defined by and if South Africa begins to think of itself in the context of the continent at large we can then begin to argue a better case about how we engage both the US and China,” he said.
He proposed that Brics should include more African states.
“The first reset of South Africa in its diplomatic focus must be the reset of its relation to the rest of the continent. We have an opportunity to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area,” he said.
“The second is that in our trade relations with our US and our global partners, we need to ask the question: how do we develop a fund that is inherently looking at how we improve on capital fund formation in the continent, in South Africa.”
Maimane added that discussions often focus on GDP and debt but not on foreign direct investment.
“If we put that at the forefront we begin to put forward positions that hold us as Africans to say ‘this is a future of investment’. Africa still has a net positive birth rate. Africa is where your next set of labour, your next set of skills, your next set of minerals will come from, and more crucially, it’s a continent that can fast-track industrialisation,” he said.
David Monyae, an associate professor at the University of Johannesburg, argued that South Africa should not expend its energy on criticising or trying to understand Trump and the US.
“We know what they stand for, and we should waste no time trying to understand, there’s nothing to understand. There is nothing that South Africa can do. We can send the best of the best brains. We can develop views of countering and reset or terms that we put. We’re just wasting our time,” he said.
“Their foreign policy and ours are worlds apart. It is anti-diversity. It is anti all we stand for in foreign policy. I’m not saying we should abandon the United States. The United States remains the most important country in the world, a number one trading partner in so many areas of our goods getting into the United States. We have a rich history with the African diaspora, even in the anti-apartheid struggle.
“We cannot convince them to abandon their own view on us, but what we can do is to craft ours and adjust it to ensure we lessen the dependence on key areas. We need to find alternative trade,” he said.
Monyae recommended that South Africa explore new markets such as Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Latin America and others, while still holding discussions with the US and China.
This required technical skills, negotiation, understanding and unity so that regardless of which political party a leader belonged to, they should “speak with one voice” on the global stage, he said.
“We cannot continue to be bogged down in slogans, singing, kill this and kill that [a reference to the debate regarding the controversial ‘Kill the boer’ slogan] and not putting in all things that add value on issues, on products that we can sell competitively on the world market. We need to engage scientifically. Improve our education system,” Monyae said.
“We must ensure the youth understand the fourth industrial revolution, understand Starlink and there are so many other satellite-based communication systems. How can we engage them for development, also understanding the security risk that goes with this?
Satellite internet company Starlink has been in the news over its failure to get an operating licence in the country because South African-born owner Elon Musk refused to meet broad-based black economic empowerment ownership requirements.
Citing the war in Ukraine, Monyae said such satellite-based systems were not just used for communication.
“We saw what’s happening in the Ukraine War, that they’re not just communication. They communicate with weapons. They are used to undermine sovereignty. They are used to undermine and advance agendas other than our own. What kind of policies are we putting in place to protect our digital sovereignty?” he said.
Zamokuhle Mbandlwa, a professor at the Durban University of Technology’s department of public management and economics, said South Africa could not afford a bad relationship with the US, noting that the latter’s withdrawal of financial support was affecting patients in the health sector who could not get treatment.
“A lot of people will suffer if we don’t mend our relationship between us and the US,” Mbandlwa said.
The acting director of the Centre for Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution at Nelson Mandela University, Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast, said South Africa tended to punch above its weight.
“I think the straw that broke the camel’s back between us and [the US] was the grievance that we instituted against Israel,” he said, referring to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, a US ally, at the International Court of Justice.
“I do appreciate the fact that what is happening between Hamas and Israel is a violation of human rights,” Breakfast said, but added: “If we had done that in good faith, then the question that begs is, why do we apply double standards? There is a conflict which is under way between Russia and Ukraine. We say we are neutral but [not] with regard to the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip is out of line, it is a violation but the point I’m making is that if, if you’ve got a principle and you stand by that, then you’ve got to apply it across the board, you can’t chop and change and say, in this case, no, you’re neutral.”
KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Francois Rogers noted that South Africa’s exports to the US contribute about R8.2 billion or about 7% of the country’s total export value.
He called for broader economic strategies and the diversification of the country’s export partners to grow its market share in Africa and in countries like Russia, China, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.