(UN)DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS: Ramaphosa found his voice abroad, but he lost it at home

President Cyril Ramaphosa has a cold. It’s why he hasn’t been out in public to give one of his solemn and well-intentioned but largely toothless addresses about the spate of murders in Ekurhuleni, which are linked to gender-based violence. It’s also believed to be one of the reasons why he will not be part of the South African contingent attending the 81st session of the UN General Assembly’s general debate week, which starts on 22 September.

Even his deputy, Paul Mashatile, is afflicted by some condition and unable to travel. To be fair, the last time Daily Maverick interacted with the deputy president in person (at the Chery plant launch in July), he looked to be in good spirits, but also as if he was carrying a lot on his shoulders.

Whether they would have been allowed into the US after this week’s escalation in diplomatic tensions with the country is another matter altogether.

Yes, about that.

The founding provisions of the Constitution states that South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values: a) Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms; b) Non-racialism and non-sexism; c) Supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law; and d) Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multiparty system of democratic government to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

So, the shock South Africans experienced on the morning of Wednesday, 16 September should come as no surprise. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced targeted visa restrictions aimed at South African officials and individuals alleged to be complicit in “race-based discrimination and uncompensated land seizures”.

But, behind the stated human rights concerns, there’s a tale of macroeconomic ­strategic manoeuvring and an attempt at low-key subversion of South Africa’s sovereign ­democratic processes.

Smoke signals

Most of the smoke being sent towards SA is because it plays a leading role in the BRICS+ expansion and de-dollarisation (read: Ramaphosa boasted about using India’s local currency payment systems). Secondary to that is South Africa’s non-aligned foreign policy regarding Russia and Ukraine, and its legal action at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

But some of the shots fired came from its own citizens and self-styled patriots. Ernst Roets and his BackaBuddy, Lex Libertas – formerly the Pioneer Initiative and associated with AfriForum – of course welcomed the US visa restrictions.

The outfit is rightfully claiming a victory lap because this escalation of diplomatic breakdown comes as a result of the successful lobbying of US lawmakers, conservative think-tanks (Heritage Foundation, Conservative Political Action Conference, National Conservatism Conference) and media platforms like The Tucker Carlson Show, a weekly podcast.

And while the Trump administration has been cutting foreign aid funding, Lex Libertas became the primary intended beneficiary of a $1-million grant from the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, pushed by political appointees to research minority crime in South Africa – but limited, of course, to white genocide.

This modern right wing of Afrikaner advocacy – championed by Roets, Kallie Kriel and the Solidarity Movement – is pushing DF Malan-era ideals of community self-governance, decentralisation and self-­determination, and becoming a state-
proof community operating semi-autonomously from the central post-1994 South African state.

If you paid attention in history class, you may recognise those ideals as the seeds of the apartheid movement, when selfbeskikking (self-determination) was used to frame racial discrimination.

Stones at BRICS

But maybe the US’s latest diplomatic moves come in response to the show that South Africa’s Citizen No 1 put on at the BRICS Summit last weekend (before having to withdraw from the public eye).

“The United Nations has entered its 81st year, having endured the Cold War and many other challenges while largely upholding its mandate to maintain global peace and security,” Ramaphosa said in an address at the summit, not yet overcome by illness.

“Over many decades, multilateralism has shown itself to be effective in organising global relations, advancing human rights and promoting development. Yet, the relevance of the United Nations and the durability of multilateralism are now threatened by overt violations of the UN Charter and the resort to war to settle differences between member states.”

The jabs were subtle and the subtext was clearly legible, but these were hardly fighting words from our then good-spirited national leader. But then he went in with a comparison (note: the Trump administration has already barred South Africa from December’s G20 meetings in the US, so Ramaphosa is liberated from currying favour to hold on to a seat at that table).

“Multilateral institutions and rules are being ignored and subverted. This is what makes BRICS an important organisation. The greatness of BRICS lies not in the fact that we are the same, but precisely in the fact that we are different.

“We represent different continents, civilisations, political traditions and stages of development. Yet we have discovered that our diversity need not divide us.”

And then came a talking point that truly poked the bear: “We can cooperate without surrendering our sovereignty, trade without demanding political conformity and pursue our national interests while advancing the interests of humanity.

“BRICS represents a world in which no nation needs to choose between East and West, North and South.

“It represents a world with many centres of power but a common commitment to development, dignity and a more equitable international order.”

None of these positions is new, particularly considering that the foundations of Ramaphosa’s “New Dawn” were laid in the trenches of the Zuma era’s “ra­­dical economic trans­­formation”.

In his 2018 State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa sowed the seeds of the firm stance he took last weekend when addressing other leaders of the emerging world.

“It is a new dawn that is inspired by our collective memory of Nelson Mandela and the changes that are unfolding. As we rid our minds of all negativity, we should reaffirm our belief that South Africa belongs to all who live in it… We are a nation at one. We are one people, committed to work together to find jobs for our youth; to build factories and roads, houses and clinics; to prepare our children for a world of change and progress; to build cities and towns where families may be safe, productive and content… We have been given the responsibility as South Africans to build a new nation, to confront the injustices of the past and the inequalities of the present.”

It’s the same man that said this at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders’ Dialogue: “As BRICS, we find ourselves at an inflection point. As the global economy is reshaped, as trade patterns shift, as technological advances accelerate and climate pressures increase, countries and companies are compelled to reconsider where they source, produce and invest.

“For us, this is an opportunity to shape a more resilient, diversified and inclusive economic future for the Global South… Our ambition must extend beyond increasing intra-BRICS trade to deepening the productive relationships between our economies.”

And it is the same leader who told a meeting of Indian and South African business leaders that the two countries are ready for a new era in economic relations, although his words during this business dialogue did take a far more revolutionary tone.

The calls for local beneficiation are not novel, but as Ramaphosa enters the final, traditionally lame-duck phase of his nearly decade-long time in the country’s highest office, there seems to be renewed urgency to drag the sun into the Global South and the African sky.

“For too long, developing economies have participated in global value chains mainly as suppliers of raw commodities,” he said. “We cannot accept a future where Africa supplies the minerals on which the next generation of industries depends while value addition and manufacturing take place elsewhere.”

In a defiant refusal to follow Ramaphosa’s bold lead in response to Rubio’s statement, someone in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation reheated a paragraph they had already written once before. International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola’s statement played all the classics: “noted with concern”, “sovereignty”, “constitutional imperative”, “fringe groups claiming to speak for Afrikaners”.

It’s the same script Pretoria has been running since US President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order first accused the government of “egregious actions” against the Afrikaner minority. What has changed is the target: this time it’s not a country facing censure in the abstract, but rather individual officials facing travel bans, named or not.

A blanket diplomatic rebuke is easy to absorb; it lands on an abstraction called South Africa. A visa restriction lands on somebody’s passport. It’s the difference between a policy dispute and a personnel file, and Pretoria’s messaging hasn’t caught up to that shift yet.

Standing on business

For 19 months, the substance of the fight hasn’t moved much. Washington’s core complaints (read: the Expropriation Act’s compensation provisions and what the Trump administration frames as discriminatory treatment of Afrikaners), sit exactly where they sat in February 2025.

And they have been echoed by US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell’s latest words on the matter: “As has been made absolutely clear, the time for endless ‘dialogue’ has run its course. No more. America has just so much patience. We want strong and lasting relations with the South African government. It needs to show it wants the same. So far it has shown it cares for neither.

“As a result, the consequences, as I’ve attempted time and again to express, are necessarily going to be severe. This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter.”

South Africa is now working against a clock that it doesn’t control. FF Plus leader Corné Mulder’s words this week, that the government had over a year to engage with conditions Washington had set and instead insisted there was “no rush” because there was “no deadline”, land harder now that Washington has manufactured a deadline of its own, one measured in individual travel bans rather than diplomatic notes.

For the Ramaphosa administration, it remains a sovereign, constitutional project to correct centuries of racial injustice, backed by instruments like the 2023 Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Act, and Washington should engage through state actors, not unilateral acts.

But what the language of bilateral discussions is obscuring is that a year-and-a-half of talking hasn’t produced a document either side is willing to sign. There has also been no meaningful dialogue between Trump and Ramaphosa since the infamous White House slideshow.

At Ramaphosa’s last public appearance – albeit virtual – at the Green Hydrogen Summit in Cape Town this week, he included what can now be seen as a pre-emptive statement that led on from a chilling warning to the West at the BRICS Summit, where he said: “Our economies have confronted profound challenges over the intervening years due to the challenging geopolitical environment that is caused by unilateralism, by sanctions and by the conflicts that continue to arise around the world...”

He then dropped this zinger at the hydrogen shindig: “In an increasingly contested world, the nations of the Global South are charting a new energy future on their own terms.”

Lamola will travel to the UN as the President and his deputy recover. South Africa will continue to look to the Constitution for guidance, even as sons of our own soil try to amend it with foreign pressure. We hope to see Ramaphosa addressing the nation soon, like in the family meeting days. It was simpler then. DM