When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he proved to a multipolarising world that old habits die hard.
The US made a mission of circling the wagons in opposition to Putin, reacting loudly and disparagingly to Russia sympathisers and nonaligned states — South Africa included.
The official neutrality of the department of international relations & co-operation (Dirco) chilled US-South Africa relations at first. Then came a slow burn. Last year saw the Lady R diplomatic row, the expansion of Brics to include, among others, Iran, and a new war in Gaza. When South Africa brought its suit against Israel to the International Court of Justice, the chair of a powerful congressional subcommittee decided it was a bridge too far.
US foreign affairs Africa subcommittee chair John James introduced the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Bill in February. The bill, with co-sponsorship from three Democrats and four Republicans, was adopted as an amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Bill and elevated to the Senate with bipartisan support.
“My amendment … simply requires the president to certify whether South Africa’s international affairs actions have negatively impacted the national security interests of the US,” James, a Republican, tells the FM in an e-mail. “The ANC’s foreign policy actions have long ceased to reflect its stated stance of nonalignment, and now directly favour the PRC [People’s Republic of China], the Russian Federation and Hamas, a known proxy of Iran.”
By the letter, the amendment’s material implications are relatively banal. But that doesn’t mean toothless.
The only way that a review could be threatening to the ANC is if their actions are truly undermining the US and our partnership with South Africa
— John James
The African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) — a US law granting more than 1,800 products from 32 countries duty-free access to US markets — yielded $47.5bn in two-way trade between the US and Africa last year. Agoa trade accounts for 2% of South Africa’s global exports, and like all member nations, South Africa must meet political benchmarks set by the US government to maintain preferential status with its second-largest trading partner.
“The only way that a review could be threatening to the ANC,” James says, “is if their actions are truly undermining the US and our partnership with South Africa.”
The bill stipulates that countries determined to be acting against US national security and foreign policy interests become ineligible, meaning a bad review per the James amendment could spell the end of Agoa for South Africa.
Scheduling ironies at the time of last month’s Agoa forum did Dirco no favours. While trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau lobbied against the James amendment in Washington, his deputy, Zuko Godlimpi, dined with his Brics+ counterparts at a trade ministers’ meeting in Moscow.
“Apart from maintaining international peace,” Godlimpi said at the meeting, “[the post-war order] was designed, mainly, to benefit developed economies. The reform of multilateral institutions should foster international co-operation and interdependence in ways that ensure meaningful participation of developing countries.”
Nelson Mandela promised that South Africa’s foreign policy would embrace nonalignment while fighting for human rights around the world. The ANC-led government has not delivered on that to the letter. But 30 years later, international relations analyst Mvemba Dizolele says multipolarity remains the cornerstone of South African foreign policy and, to the ire of the US, it’s not out of step for Dirco to have the equivalent of two matric dance dates.
“The US knows that the world is not black and white,” says Dizolele, who directs the Africa programme at the Center for International & Strategic Studies in Washington. “These policymakers know this. I think that [a hawkish] posture scores points in the short run, but in the bigger picture, which is great power competition, the US will lose hearts and minds.”
Washington needs those hearts and minds in its relations with Africa, Dizolele says, but if it acts against Pretoria, “everybody else will say: ‘What will happen to the rest of us?’”
Still, in a nail-bitingly close US election season, long-term policy objectives such as Agoa reauthorisation have taken a back seat to political expediency. Dizolele says the James amendment was born with that in mind.
Republicans are constrained by a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives, a Democratic majority in the more mild-mannered Senate and a veto-wielding Democrat in the White House, meaning the party will likely close out the 118th Congress having made more noise than laws. Still, even a two-seat majority in the 435-member House entitles Republicans to chair each congressional committee, empowering the party to set — or kill — legislative agendas, launch investigations and steer agency oversight.
The state department, diplomatic missions and, critically for South Africa, the US Agency for International Development and Agoa fall under the purview of the foreign affairs committee. It often sets the tone for US foreign policy, and the Africa subcommittee’s hearing on South Africa last September raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic for its bombastic tenor. In his opening statement, James cautioned forebodingly that “South Africa has a choice in what partners to prioritise, but so too does the US”.
Agoa took place almost 25 years ago, the first [US] trade agreement with the African continent that did not involve kidnapping African bodies
— Jonathan Jackson
For representative Jonathan Jackson, who serves on the subcommittee, South Africa is a matter of personal concern. The Democrat’s father, the Rev Jesse Jackson, received the Order of Companions of OR Tambo in 2013, which recognised the civil rights leader’s role in fighting apartheid. He’s characterised James’s hawkish position on South Africa as “purely political”.
“[US President Joe] Biden is against the bill, and the state department is also against the bill,” Jackson tells the FM. “What James is doing is an election year campaign stunt … For those who have travelled the continent, for those persons such as myself who know South Africans, and for those who know the history of South Africa, this will not age well.”
Dizolele agrees. Making an example of South Africa, he says, both contravenes the state department’s Africa strategy and threatens to jeopardise US interests on the continent.
“If you make an example of South Africa today, what do you gain? What is the upside for the US? OK, so you feel good as a senator, as a congressman. You go to your district, you say: ‘Look at what I did.’ OK, great. But then, two cycles from there, you’re booted out of office [and] the relationship with South Africa is tattered.”
The House floor vote on the James amendment suggests this is a wager both parties are willing to take.
Jackson, perhaps with a tinge of optimism, says the US can forge strong relations with South Africa.
“Agoa took place almost 25 years ago, “[It was the US’s] first trade agreement with the African continent that did not involve kidnapping African bodies … Let’s focus now on the next 25 years, not the next 16 years, not the next 10 years, but let’s look at Africa in 2050, when 25% of the world’s population will be Africans,” he says. “We were on the wrong side of history for too long with South Africa, we cannot have this former colonial mentality and try to punish South Africans; they have the right to exert their self-determination, their spirit of ideas, and we should celebrate them and learn from South Africans.”
Dizolele shares Jackson’s sense of urgency when it comes to US-South Africa relations. But he cautions that each side struggles to recognise how the other understands their history.
“There is the historical background that is often lost on Americans,” Dizolele says. “In the US, the view of the relationship with South Africa is that the US played a major role in helping Mandela out, and Mandela came out, and we are good people and South Africa needs to see us as such. How dare they act in a way that is contrary to the interests of the US as viewed from Washington? From the South African perspective, the US was on the wrong side of the equation. The US sided with the apartheid regime, not just politically — militarily and in so many other ways. And it’s not that long ago.”
In the vein of Evita Bezuidenhout, who quips that “the future of South Africa is certain, it’s just the past that is unpredictable”, Dizolele adds that the future of US-South Africa relations is contingent on “reconciling these two histories — rising above the ignorance of it or the limited understanding of where each one of these countries is coming from”.
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