For all his domestic woes over electronic surveillance, his international ones over his ambivalent Syria policy, the fraught withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his complicated reframing of the way terrorism is fought, he remains the most important visitor to this country in a decade (Xi Jinping notwithstanding). And for all that the balance of global power is shifting east, the relationship with the US is critical to our economic, security and diplomatic interests.
We are hearing very little from our own government about the agenda for the visit, and the White House, while giving bland encomiums about democracy to the US media, is doing nothing to prepare the ground in a South Africa that is no longer in thrall of Obama’s star power.
In the vacuum of serious policy discussion, the space is being filled by phoney debates about the Freedom of Cape Town, and a possible honorary doctorate at the University of Johannesburg.
Of course, the visit is an opportunity to reflect on the perversity of drone wars, the erosion of democratic values by the surveillance state and the hypocrisy of US trade policy. But anti-Americanism doesn’t help us any more than cheerleading, or the kind of “yellow peril” anxiety that lies beneath some of the criticism of efforts to negotiate a pragmatic relationship with China.
What might a more serious reconsideration of the relationship entail for a South Africa that needs to look east, west and toward Addis Ababa in framing a policy of both values and interests?
Certainly, we want some simple things. Ongoing inclusion in African Growth and Opportunity Act trade preferences, rather than “migration” out on the grounds of relative wealth and sophistication, for example.
With South African hostages in the hands of al-Qaeda associates in Mali and Yemen, and the death of three Denel contractors at the hands of al-Shabab in Mogadishu this week, there can be no denying that our security interests are entwined with those of the US.
This will play out on the continent in complicated ways, from Nigeria and the Sahel to Uganda and the Horn. What role South Africa and regional bodies play vis-à-vis the United Nations and US forces needs to be much better articulated. And that process is intimately linked to the broader discussion of reform in institutions of global governance such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Climate change, which Obama hopes to deal with at home later this year, should also be high on the agenda.
We hope, too that President Jacob Zuma will ask Obama, as Angela Merkel did, to what extent ordinary South Africans are caught up in US electronic spying. Of course, we need to offer something in return. The Zuma administration is already doing a better job on Zimbabwe.
A more predictable set of positions – albeit nonaligned ones – in global bodies and bilateral engagements would help too. Nuclear nonproliferation – a priority for Obama and an area where South Africa once had a strong record – is an obvious case in point.
Finally, shoring up South Africa’s credibility as a representative of the continent would help to reinforce the need for real engagement. It is a relationship seriously tested by differences on Côte d’Ivoire and Libya. Both sides need to be smart enough to work together despite basic weaknesses of trust.