SA to send delegation to US to 'do a deal'

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President Cyril Ramaphosa said that South Africa wants to find agreement with the new US government on diplomatic, trade and other issues following harsh criticism of the country by Donald Trump.

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Pretoria plans to send a delegation to Washington to settle a host of issues, Ramaphosa said at an event on the sidelines of G20 meetings in South Africa that were snubbed by the US foreign and finance ministers.

“We would like to go to the United States to do a deal,” he said in a discussion with Goldman Sachs vice-chairman Richard Gnodde.

“We don’t want to go and explain ourselves, we want to go and do a meaningful deal with the United States on a whole range of issues,” he said.

However, South Africa is a founding member of BRICS, along with Brazil, Russian, India and China – a number of which are also in the crosshairs of Trump.

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What is BRICS?

BRICS is an intergovernmental organisation, now consisting of 10 countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and as of 1 January 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

It is considered to be a counterpart and alternative to the G7 bloc.

The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Additionally, the European Union (EU) is a “non-enumerated member”.

‘Cut off funding’

Trump tore into the South Africa government early this month, accusing it of “confiscating” land from white farmers and announcing he would cut off funding.

He was referring to a bill that Ramaphosa signed into law last month that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer “nil compensation” for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest.

The new law is intended to go some way in addressing historic inequalities in land ownership, with the minority white population still owning most farmland three decades after the end of apartheid.

Cyril Ramaphosa said he had a “wonderful” call with Trump soon after the US leader took office in January. But relations later “seemed to go a little bit off the rails”, he said.

The US secretaries of state and finance later said they would not attend this month’s G20 ministerial meetings in South Africa.

The United States is South Africa’s second-biggest trading partner and will take over the rotating G20 presidency next year.

“We have got to make a deal of one sort or another on trade issues, on diplomatic issues, on political issues, a whole span of issues,” the South African leader said.

“It’s inevitable that we will get together and do a deal.”