Trump’s Pressure Campaign Against South Africa Is About More Than Just The Boers

The ANC’s long track record of political mistakes and policy failures is finally catching up to it precisely at the moment when the party finally started prioritizing South Africa’s participation in global processes, thus creating the pretext for the US to meddle in this BRICS member’s affairs.

Trump signed an Executive Order late last week “Addressing Egregious Actions Of The Republic Of South Africa” that mandated cutting off aid to the country as punishment for its new contentious Expropriation Act and promoting the resettlement of the white minority (Afrikaners) to the US. Supporters applauded him for giving attention to what they consider to be the long-ignored issue of black-on-white racially discriminatory policies while opponents believe that it’s a racist move promulgated on false pretexts.

Before proceeding, readers might want to review some of RT’s reports about the Afrikaner farmer (Boer) issue, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), and the country’s economic challenges:

* 19 March 2009: “The Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War”

* 25 October 2013: “S. Africa evacuation plan: White Afrikaner group fears genocide upon Mandela’s death”

* 1 May 2018: “Why South Africa's govt plans to strip land from white farmers”

* 15 June 2018: “Calls to ‘kill the Boer’ make all farmers targets, not just whites – South African official”

* 9 July 2018: “‘A matter of life & death’: 15,000 white South African farmers seek refuge in Russia, report says”

* 19 July 2018: “‘They want us all to leave’: South African farmer wants to move to Russia, change name to Ivan”

20 July 2018: “First 50 families of farmers from South Africa may soon resettle in Russia”

* 4 August 2018: “South African farmers seek refuge in Russia’s Crimea”

* 28 February 2019: “South Africa’s ANC needs just 5 years ‘to destroy the economy & the country,’ economist warns”

* 17 April 2019: “South Africa’s economic & social decline the worst of nations not at war”

* 18 April 2019: “‘Don't ever vote for white person’: South African ANC leader's race-based call discussed on RT”

* 11 May 2019: “As it re-elects hopeless ANC again, do we finally admit that post-apartheid South Africa has failed?”

* 4 April 2020: “‘White monopoly capital’: Anti-white South African radicals scorn massive donations that could help black businesses”

* 16 October 2020: “White farmer’s brutal murder sends protesters & counter-protesters to rally outside courthouse in South Africa”

To oversimplify, the brutal murder of some Boers on their farms led to some Afrikaners suspecting that the ANC turns a blind eye to this and even encourages it, while the ANC believes that the Afrikaners’ outsized control over national wealth is an injustice that must be rectified via redistribution. The Expropriation Act’s recent passing came amidst the country’s continued economic challenges, ergo why some of the Afrikaners consider it a distraction while the ANC insists that it’s a long-overdue solution.

Regardless of one’s personal views on this subject, it’s arguably the case that this is just a pretext for Trump to pressure South Africa for reasons beyond those stated in his Executive Order. While some speculate that his motives are as crude as a favor to South African-born Elon Musk amidst his public feud with President Cyril Ramaphosa over this issue and/or revenge for South Africa’s ICJ ruling against Israel, and these could have indeed played a role, his team might have broader strategic interests in mind.

ANC-led South Africa has presented itself as a rising multipolar pole in Africa amidst the global systemic transition, to which end it’s sought to increase its role in BRICS alongside participating in multilateral naval drills with China and Russia, thus reinforcing the aforesaid international reputation. The US disapproved of South Africa flexing its sovereignty in such a symbolic way, especially given the ongoing NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine, hence why the Biden Administration began pressuring it.

Here are some background briefings about their campaign against it over the past few years:

* 3 September 2022: “South Africa Deserves Praise For Its Neutral Foreign Policy In The New Cold War”

* 11 December 2022: “Germany’s Double Standards On South African Coal Expose Its ‘Green Imperialism’”

* 18 February 2023: “South Africa's naval drills with China and Russia set a positive example”

* 26 April 2023: “South Africa’s Neutrality In The New Cold War Is Under Threat From Western Pressure”

* 12 May 2023: “The US Is Forcing South Africa To Take Sides In The New Cold War”

* 17 May 2023: “South Africa Is Presenting Itself As The Continent’s Leader”

* 14 July 2023: “South Africa’s Deputy President Spilled The Beans About His Country’s BRICS-ICC Dilemma”

* 19 July 2023: “South Africa Showed That BRICS Isn’t What Many Of Its Supporters Assumed”

* 20 July 2023: “South Africa Bungled The Optics Of Its BRICS Compromise With Russia”

* 3 September 2024: “Mongolia’s Embrace Of Putin Despite His ICC Warrant Exposes South Africa’s Political Cowardice”

This is the basis upon which Trump is now waging his own pressure campaign against South Africa.

His predecessor succeeded in coercing South Africa into complying with the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin and therefore forcing him to participate in that year’s BRICS Summit by video instead. For as symbolic of a concession that that was to the US, it didn’t change anything tangible with regard to South Africa’s foreign policy, which is what Trump is aiming to do. His team might have identified South Africa as one of the weak links in BRICS and correspondingly concluded that a pressure campaign could break it.

It's debatable whether Trump truly believes that BRICS is conspiring to create a new currency or backing the yuan as a rival to the dollar, or if this is just a pretext for him to individually pressure its members, but his recently repeated threat to impose 100% tariffs against them preceded his Executive Order. Therefore, the possibility exists that cutting off aid to South Africa in response to its Expropriation Act is just an excuse to coerce it into tangible foreign policy changes, most immediately with regard to BRICS.

In practice, this could hypothetically take the form of South Africa obstructing progress on the BRICS Bridge, BRICS Clear, and BRICS Pay initiatives that were discussed during last October’s Kazan Summit. It might also lead to South Africa militarily distancing itself from Russia and especially China together with exporting more precious minerals to the US in the long term in exchange for pressure relief. To be clear, just because Trump might want this doesn’t mean that it’ll happen, but it should still be taken seriously.

The relevance that all of this has to the Expropriation Act is that the aforesaid represents both a populist distraction from South Africa’s continued economic challenges as well as a potential solution from the ANC’s perspective despite some warning that it risks leading to a Zimbabwean-like disaster. In the far-fetched scenario that the same lawmakers who voted for this act are coerced by the US into voting to rescind it, then this would deal a deathblow to the ANC, which might then be replaced by the EFF.

The Economic Freedom Fighters are led by radical leftist-populist Julius Malema, who’s infamous for leading chants of “Kill the Boer”, which he and his supporters claim is just metaphorical and not literal. He fashions himself as a revolutionary that’s been very outspoken against the US and in favor of multipolarity. More South Africans might flock to Malema and his EFF for patriotic-nationalist reasons if Ramaphosa and his ANC ultimately capitulate to what he just described as Trump’s “bullying”.

In order to preemptively avoid any misunderstanding, talking about this scenario doesn’t mean that it’s likely, only that it’s possible and should thus be considered just in case. Ramaphosa knows that he and his party would be doomed if they give in to Trump so they’re not expected to budge, at least for now, unless the US drastically ramps up its pressure campaign. Even then, however, they might try to co-opt Malema’s leftist-populist and nationalist rhetoric in order to rally the population at large behind them.

Observers should also be aware that new Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared late last week that he won’t attend this November’s G20 Summit in Johannesburg in protest of the Expropriation Act and what he said are South Africa’s other “anti-American” policies. Knowing that this act likely won’t be rescinded, it could very well be that Trump’s team planned to exploit this pretext for the purpose of weakening the world’s most influential economic-financial multilateral platform by boycotting its annual event.

He's already taken a wrecking ball to economic globalization in recent weeks by threatening tariffs against Colombia, Panama, Canada, and Mexico before they gave in to his pressure, all while imposing 10% tariffs on China and threatening to do something similar against the EU too. If this trend continues, then the G20 might no longer wield anywhere near the influence that it did just one year ago, thus dooming November’s summit to failure regardless of whether or not the US ends up attending.

It's South Africa’s bad fortune that it was already in the US’ crosshairs during the Biden Administration for its multipolar foreign policy, that there’s genuine concern about the treatment of some of its white minority, and its plans to host the next G20 Summit later this year. These factors converged to incentivize Trump into launching a pressure campaign against it in order to coerce tangible changes to its foreign policy, particularly vis-à-vis BRICS, so as to fully subordinate South Africa it to the West.

The ANC’s long track record of political mistakes and policy failures is finally catching up to it precisely at the moment when the party finally started prioritizing South Africa’s participation in global processes, thus creating the pretext for the US to meddle in this BRICS member’s affairs. The outcome of Trump’s pressure campaign against it will indicate he continues picking off this group’s countries one-by-one or decides to reconsider this strategy, therefore making it immensely important.