JOHANNESBURG—Senior officials from the South African government have been in Washington since April 28 to try to prevent the Biden administration and members of Congress from punishing the country for its increasingly close links with China, Russia, and other anti-United States powers.
The delegation is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national security adviser, Sydney Mufamadi, who is also a top member of South Africa’s governing African National Congress, the ANC.
The visit is happening amid concerns that South Africa’s ongoing refusal to condemn Russia’s war on Ukraine is jeopardizing its economic and political relations with the United States.
China and the former Soviet Union backed the ANC’s armed struggle against apartheid, and Africa’s oldest liberation movement has stated that this is reason enough for it to maintain a “close friendship” with Beijing and Moscow, “whatever the cost.”
“That cost might arrive much sooner than the ANC expected, in the form of Washington ejecting South Africa from AGOA,” Chris Isike, a professor of international relations at the University of Pretoria, told The Epoch Times.
AGOA is the U.S. government’s African Growth and Opportunity Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000. It gives African countries that subscribe to values considered important to Washington, such as democracy and human rights, duty- and quota-free access to U.S. markets for a long list of products.
According to the U.S. government’s AGOA online portal, South Africa exported goods worth 60 billion rands, almost $3.5 billion, to the United States under AGOA in 2022.
“AGOA is very beneficial to South Africa, particularly for our motor vehicle manufacturers and for our agricultural sector. We export a lot of vehicles and fresh fruit and vegetables to the U.S.," Peter Fabricius, an independent international relations expert based in Johannesburg, told The Epoch Times.
Being a member of AGOA is also symbolic, because it gives other countries and investors confidence to do business with South Africa.”
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, told The Epoch Times that AGOA was “only one part” of the presidential delegation’s business in Washington.
“A lot of the discussions that have already happened this weekend were follow-up issues that sprang from President Ramaphosa’s meeting with President Biden at the White House in September,” Magwenya said.
Magwenya said that one of these issues was Washington’s offer to support South Africa’s battle against insurgents allied to the Islamic State in neighboring Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo; another issue was differences over U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe and increased U.S. tariffs on South African steel imports.
“I want to reiterate that our team is not in Washington because President Ramaphosa is afraid we’ll lose our AGOA membership,” Magwenya said.
But Fabricius said Ramaphosa wouldn’t send a special delegation to Washington if he weren’t worried about something that could threaten future U.S.–South African relations.
Senior ANC officials told The Epoch Times that the South African government’s trip to the U.S. Capitol wasn’t “prearranged” and was “out of the ordinary.”
Fabricius said Pretoria clearly had reason to be concerned, as powerful members of the U.S. Congress belonging to both parties “want South Africa to face some kind of consequences” for its “constant and unreasonable” support for regimes including China, Russia, and Iran.
“Clearly there’s a lot of unhappiness in the U.S. about our positions on Russia, in particular. There’s a feeling that we’re moving from a nonaligned position, towards being a firm ally of Russia," Fabricius said.
“Our so-called neutral stance in the war on Ukraine was previously grudgingly accepted by the Americans, but our government’s apparent slide towards Moscow and its other notable allies, especially China, is being condemned in the U.S.”
The ANC and Washington have had strained relations since the ANC abstained from a vote in the United National General Assembly in March 2022 condemning Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
It has insisted that it’s “nonaligned” and “neutral” as regards the conflict, but many of its actions are suggestive of tacit support for the Kremlin, and Putin has issued personal invitations to the ANC to visit Moscow on several occasions since the conflict started.
Ramaphosa has also invited the Russian leader to the annual summit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries in August, in defiance of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The ICC has issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for alleged war crimes.
South Africa, as an ICC member, would be obliged to take him into custody should he set foot on its territory. But its government has made it clear that it has no intention of doing so, and the Russian leader remains welcome.
The AGOA Forum, an annual event attended by heads of African member states and senior U.S. trade officials and members of Congress, is scheduled to be held in South Africa in September, just weeks after the BRICS Summit.
The timing was “risky” for the U.S. government, Isike said.
“If Putin visits South Africa and isn’t arrested, and is treated like a hero here, like he has been in the past, and then the Americans arrive ... Well, the optics are not going to look good for them," he said.
“They will probably suffer political consequences back home if they’re seen being friendly with a government that’s just held a big party with one of their big enemies.”
Pretoria is also allowing sanctioned Russian vessels to dock in South African ports and recently hosted joint military exercises with the Chinese and Russian navies. South Africa then declined to participate in the U.S.-led “Cutlass Express” trainings off the East and West coasts of Africa.
“That was a strategic mistake,” Isike said. “That doesn’t look like impartiality at all; it looks as if Pretoria favors Moscow and Beijing over Washington, so it’s little wonder that some Americans are losing patience with South Africa.”
Fabricius said it was “mainly” Republicans who were “unhappy” with South Africa. “The Democratic administration is also a bit upset. But Biden tends to be quite sympathetic,” he said.
Republican members of the House of Representatives have drafted a resolution condemning South Africa’s tight relations with China and Russia and calling on the Biden administration to reconsider its relationship with the ANC government and in particular, the benefits South Africa derives from AGOA.
Isike said that he doesn’t think Washington will risk driving a key African country further into the China–Russia camp by removing it from AGOA, severely curtailing South Africa’s ability to do business in the United States.
“If South Africa cannot earn money in the U.S., where else can it go? Where’s the next best option? Well, that’s China,” he said. “At least if the Americans keep South Africa in AGOA, they have some kind of leverage over it.”
He also pointed out the ANC was currently doing something that no Western power was able to do: meet regularly with the Russian government in Moscow.
“There’s an advantage South Africa has, which may benefit the U.S., in terms of South Africa’s ability to talk to Russia and help to resolve the conflict in line with its commitment to a peaceful resolution,” Isike said.
“In essence, South Africa does have linkages to Ukraine and Russia and I think it presents an opportunity to help the U.S. have a connection to help to resolve this conflict, however indirect that may be.”
Magwenya said Ramaphosa was in “frequent” contact with Biden and other senior U.S. officials.
“[None are] bent on punishing us for anything we have or haven’t done,” he said.
“President Biden appreciates that President Ramaphosa has an open line to President Putin and to [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky.”
Magwenya said South African government officials were visiting Moscow on a regular basis, for a variety of reasons, including to urge Putin to work toward a “peaceful end” to the conflict.
The Russian president has, however, continued to insist that he will achieve a military victory in Ukraine.
“South Africa needs to take a critical look at its relationship with Russia from a national interest point of view, from an economic point of view,” Isike said.
“Where is its bread being buttered? Its bread is being buttered in Europe and the United States. In 2021, which was a terrible year for global trade because of the pandemic, there was $21 billion in trade between America and South Africa. South Africa exports a few fruit and vegetables to Russia, but its imports from Russia are miniscule. Russia contributes almost nothing economically to the country.”
He said that although the Biden administration is likely to keep trade flowing between the United States and South Africa, it’s likely that a Republican government “won’t be as forgiving.”
