In light of Trump’s frantic attempts to reduce dependence on China in this area, he should have been courting Pretoria in every possible way for cooperation. Igor Istomin discusses why the United States is being openly confrontational instead.
The Trump administration’s policy regarding South Africa is a product of the spill-over of domestic political confrontation into foreign policy. This process fuels the ideologization of the American agenda in the international arena, which has not diminished with the Republicans coming to power in Washington.
The orientation towards confrontation cannot be stopped, despite US interest in the strategic resources which South Africa is so rich in. The nature of Washington’s policy is unlikely to be shaken even by a change of personalities in the entourage of the American leader or compromises on individual issues of the world political agenda, due to it being rooted in the nature of Trumpism.
Chronicle of discord
Donald Trump’s relations with South Africa became strained immediately after his return to power. On February 2, he announced the end of economic aid to Pretoria in response to the adoption of a law expanding the rights of the South African government to expropriate land (in some cases without compensation). The volume of this aid last year was estimated at more than 300 million US dollars.
A few days later, Trump also initiated a policy of providing asylum to Afrikaner refugees — members of the white minority, which, according to the American administration, is discriminated against on racial grounds in South Africa. In May, the first batch of about fifty migrants was met by high-ranking administration officials: deputy secretaries of state and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Even such a small number of arrivals contrasts with the general direction of Trump’s policy in the area of migration, which virtually completely blocked the reception of refugees.
Plans to expeditiously legalise the resettlement of thousands of Afrikaners, whom the US president described as victims of “genocide”, are being thrown into the public arena.
Such accusations were all the more revealing since they were made on the eve of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Washington on May 21. His trip reflected the desire of the African country’s leadership to moderate the tensions with the United States, or try to. However, it degenerated into a further escalation of the public confrontation.
At a meeting with the South African leader, Trump, in the presence of journalists, launched a video illustrating his previous accusations. It, for example, included recordings of an opposition politician chanting “Kill the Boer!” Having forgotten his recent denunciation of “Western interventionism” the US President demanded that South Africa ban such chants, arrest the figures who perform them and, in general, change the policy towards the white population. Even faced with such obvious interference in internal affairs, Ramaphosa tried to smooth things over without entering into a direct squabble with Trump. After the failed visit, he was working on a second attempt to change the vector of development of relations — the leader of South Africa joined the G7 summit in June in the expectation of a possible meeting with the US President.
Due to the fact that Trump left the event before its completion, the contact did not take place. South Africa’s desire to improve relations with the United States is explained not only by the desire to return American aid, which was instrumental in the fight against the HIV epidemic, but also by other considerations. In 2025, Pretoria chairs the G20, and Trump’s alleged refusal to attend the summit threatens to downgrade the status of an event that is important to it.
More importantly, the US is South Africa’s third largest trading partner, accounting for 8% of total trade.
The significance of this circumstance increases in light of Washington’s initiative to transform the international trade system to reflect the principle of “tariff reciprocity”. As part of this policy, the United States has threatened to raise South Africa’s duties to 30% from August 1, 2025. In addition, as a BRICS member, the country falls under the 10% tariff announced by D. Trump for pursuing “anti-American policies”.
A Tangle of Controversies
Washington’s line on South Africa conflicts with American interests in accessing strategically important minerals in the context of the deepening confrontation with China. For example, the African country provides more than 70% of the world’s platinum, acting as its key supplier to the United States.
South Africa also has the largest deposits of manganese and chromium. While Washington does not purchase these in large volumes, it includes them in the nomenclature of critical raw materials. Finally, South Africa has noteworthy, albeit not record-breaking, reserves of rare earth metals. Moreover, these deposits are of exceptionally high quality.
In light of Trump’s frantic attempts to reduce dependence on China in this area, he should have been courting Pretoria in every possible way for cooperation. Why, instead, is the United States being openly confrontational? Possible reasons for this anomaly are usually sought both in disagreements over the international political agenda and in the composition of Trump’s team.
Much attention was drawn to the role of South Africa as one of the main critics of Israel after the start of the war in Gaza. In 2023, it even appealed to the International Court of Justice to recognise the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinians as an act of genocide. These steps caused complications even with the Biden administration, which Donald Trump repeatedly accused of insufficient support for Israel. It is significant that the rejection of South Africa’s position on Israel was directly referenced in the February decree suspending economic aid. At the same time, since mid-spring, there has been evidence of a deterioration in the attitude of the Trump administration towards the Israeli leadership. Under these conditions, one would expect a decrease in the influence of differences regarding the Middle East issue on American policy towards South Africa.
Another source of controversy is Pretoria’s policy of deepening partnerships with other non-Western centres of power, including via BRICS. In particular, in recent years, its cooperation with Beijing, the country’s main trading partner, has actively strengthened. In addition, South Africa generated discontent in the United States by refusing to join in the West’s efforts to weaken and isolate Russia after the start of the special military operation.
Donald Trump regularly emphasises his negative attitude towards configurations that threaten American positions in global politics and finance. At the same time, he has demonstrated a diversified approach to non-Western players. For example, he is actively strengthening ties with India. Moreover, with his arrival, Washington has resumed a previously interrupted dialogue with Russia. That is, belonging to BRICS in and of itself does not automatically place South Africa in the circle of US opponents.
Finally, the origins of the US President’s confrontational approach to South Africa could be found in the composition of his team. Elon Musk was a key supporter of Donald Trump during the election campaign and a leading ally in the first months of his rule. This South Africa native is a consistent critic of its government and its policy of positive discrimination favouring previously oppressed groups.
The company Starlink, owned by Musk, has long been unable to obtain permission to provide Internet services in South Africa. According to South African law, foreign companies operating in the telecommunications sector must transfer at least 30% of their shares in the business to representatives of the black or coloured population, but it refuses to comply with this condition.
The break between Trump and the entrepreneur in June 2025 was supposed to weaken the lobby advocating for pressure on Pretoria in the entourage of the US President. However, after their falling out, South Africa was among the first countries Washington mentioned when introducing new tariff measures. The explanation for the observed rejection is that Trump’s line on South Africa is determined not by the influence of individual personalities or even by differences in international issues, but by Trumpism itself.
South Africa as “anti-America”
Despite the transactionalism he is known for, Donald Trump is the mouthpiece for a powerful ideological trend in American politics. It is based on the dissatisfaction of significant sections of the population with the direction in which the political elites led the United States in previous decades. First of all, people who share these beliefs condemn the provision of various benefits and privileges to individual groups (presumably previously oppressed).
Initially, these measures were intended to eliminate structural barriers to the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities, but as they expanded, they increasingly came into conflict with it. The resulting distortions were superimposed on the demographic trend of a decline in the proportion of whites in the country’s population, which increased the perception of an ontological threat to this group. As a result, the policy being pursued began to exacerbate, first and foremost, their sense of social injustice, and not only theirs.
Against this background, South Africa, with its efforts to counteract the heavy legacy of apartheid, when not only political power but also economic wealth were concentrated in the hands of the white minority, appears in the eyes of Trumpists as a hyperbolic embodiment of what the United States could and may become if their opponents remain in power. In their eyes, South Africa, from a cultural and value point of view, is the anti-America.
Just as in the second half of the 2010s the Democrats took the path of projecting domestic political contradictions outward, presenting Russia as the alter ego of the Republican Party, so now for the Trumpists (with an adjustment for their lesser obsession) South Africa is turning into a sanctuary of democratic socialism, which they are fighting at home. As a result, the foreign policy agenda fades in the shadow of domestic political differences.
From the Trumpist perspective, Afrikaners are not simply victims of discriminatory policies, but an idealised copy, a kind of avatar of themselves. A selective appeal to historical experience helps to paint an image of people who preserve the foundations of “real Americans”: religiosity, conservatism, self-reliance. The representation of Afrikaners almost exclusively as farmers also resonates with the idealisation of the real sector within the framework of Trumpism.
Moreover, their politically marginal position in modern South Africa, as well as their experience fighting the British Empire during the colonial period, allow Republicans who are traditionally sceptical of the state to position Afrikaners as staunch fighters against a repressive and dysfunctional government machine. At the same time, the long period when Afrikaners were in power in South Africa is left out of sight.
In light of this ideological approach, it is not surprising that the position of white farmers in South Africa began to occupy Donald Trump during his first term. Already in 2018, when the relevant bill was only being discussed, he expressed concern about the possibility of their lands being expropriated. At the same time, accusations of racially motivated murders began to be made. Thus, Trump’s views on South Africa took shape long before he met Elon Musk.
Likewise, the ideological origins of the policy towards South Africa make reflecting on its practical consequences irrelevant. In particular, the fact that the newly introduced tariffs affect, among other things, agricultural products, dealing a blow to the business of those very Afrikaners whom the Trump administration is eager to protect. For many white farmers, the United States is an important market on which their financial situation depends.
Like companies that are invited to move production to the United States in order to reduce costs from duties, they are given the opportunity to avoid the difficulties caused by the adopted measures by simply moving. Unlike other migrants, whom the Trumpists see as a potential electorate for the Democratic Party, the Afrikaners are seen as a reserve to replenish their own ranks in the face of the threat of the “great replacement”.
***
To sum up, US policy towards South Africa is not based on opportunism, and has deep ideological roots. This gives it stability. It should be expected that the grounds for confrontation will remain for as long as the Trumpists remain in power, despite the strategic costs of the policy. In turn, it will continue to encourage Pretoria to deepen its orientation towards non-Western centres of power, which is capable of further strengthening American hostility, leading to a spiral of increasing hostility.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.