The United States and South Africa, With Reuben Brigety

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boies distinguished senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is U.S.-South Africa relations.
With me to discuss ties between Washington and Pretoria in the wake of last week's meeting between President Donald Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa is Reuben Brigety. Reuben is president of Busara Advisors and former U.S. ambassador to South Africa. From 2013 to 2015, he was the U.S. representative to the African Union. Before that, he was deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. In between his stints working for President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden, Reuben was dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where he founded the Institute for African Studies. Reuben, thank you for joining me on The President's Inbox.

BRIGETY:
It's my pleasure to be with you.

LINDSAY:
Reuben, let's begin with the Oval Office meeting last week between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa. The discussion between the two presidents got heated at times. What do you make of it?

BRIGETY:
Well, I think that what you saw on display there was several things. The first is an epic clash of both ideologies and instincts. Ideologies in the sense that what contemporary South Africa stands for, at least as they articulate themselves as having not only overcome the challenge of apartheid, but actively trying to redress those challenges of the past, is almost a hundred and eighty degrees opposite from where President Trump is. And in the sense of, well, one of the whole ideas behind make America great again is restoring a sense of American greatness and taking a different view of what the nature of that history is. And so when President Trump made clear to President Ramaphosa that his first interest was not talking about trade or golf, which is what President Ramaphosa wanted to talk about, President Trump was very clear that what was of interest to him was claims of white genocide, farm murders against principally Afrikaner farmers.
And that fundamental disconnect, I think, underlay frankly a much, much more important dynamic in the bilateral relationship. Since 1994, the nature of the U.S.-South Africa relationship and both parties, both Democratic and Republican administrations has been to be supportive of South Africa as it becomes a full multi-party democracy in order to help support the country to fulfill the aspirations of all of its peoples. And I think that what you're seeing in the Trump administration is that whatever residual goodwill may have underpinned the U.S.-South Africa bilateral relationship as a result of trying to redress the wrongs of apartheid, that is now gone completely. And to the extent that this relationship is going to have to be reset and remade, it's going to have to be done so first on the basis of very clear, shared hard interest, principally economic, but also done in a way that frankly gives some level of understanding of the respective ideological premises of each administration.

LINDSAY:
I want to get into the broader relationship in a moment, Reuben, but I'd like to just for a moment, zero in on the claim that President Trump made that there's an ongoing genocide against white farmers in South Africa, primarily Afrikaans farmers, that is of the Dutch who came to the region hundreds of years ago. Is there any merit to the claim that white farmers are being singled out and murdered in South Africa?

BRIGETY:
Well, let's start with a couple of broad facts. The first is that South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. It has, I think, the third highest per capita murder rate in the world. And so that is impacting everybody in South Africa in ways that quite frankly, notwithstanding the brutality of apartheid simply were not the case pre-1994 for anybody.

LINDSAY:
Yeah. I'll just note that the murder rate in South Africa is roughly nine times that in the United States.

BRIGETY:
Right. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that yes, it is objectively true that white farmers have been killed on their farms over the last many years. And when you talk to many white farmers, they are concerned about their level of security, as is virtually everybody in South Africa. If you just drive through Pretoria or drive through Johannesburg or Durban or these places, you can't drive through any residential area where homes are not behind large gated individual fortresses really with concertina wire or whatnot. When there were massive riots in Durban in the summer of 2021, and the country basically lost control of one of his largest cities for about a week, it turned out that it was made clear that the number of people in the private security industry in South Africa outnumber the total number of people in the police, the military, and the intelligence community combined by a factor of two to one.

LINDSAY:
That's a sizable private security establishment.

BRIGETY:
Right. Which gives you a sense of just how much this is a problem in the country. Now, having said all of that, the idea of a white genocide in South Africa is patently false. It's objectively not true. And the case for that was made directly to President Trump by members of President Ramaphosa's delegation. By white members of President Ramaphosa's delegation. Whether it be John Steenhuisen who is the leader of the Democratic Alliance, who's also minister for agriculture in the current government, who is also white, whether it be Johann Rupert, who is the richest man in South Africa, one of the richest man on the continent who's also Afrikaner, or whether it be Ernie Els, championship South African golfer. All told President Trump that the idea of a white genocide in South Africa is simply factually unsupported.

LINDSAY:
And I should just note that some of the handouts that President Trump produced or press clippings actually weren't taken from events in South Africa. One photo he showed of people who've been killed was taken from earlier this year in Goma in the Republic of Congo, which is why I think President Ramaphosa was a bit puzzled by what he was being shown.

BRIGETY:
Now, having said all of that, elections matter. And in the election of 2024, the American people chose a very different approach to foreign policy and maybe they didn't know all the specifics they were getting, but they certainly chose, and in this particular case, a president who of all the things that are happening in South Africa, made the decision for his prerogative to highlight the particular concerns of white South Africans and contemporary South Africans, starting with concerns for their own security. And so notwithstanding whatever the fact pattern may be, the fact that the President of the United States chose to use this moment to make it very, very clear that going forward as it relates to the U.S.-South African bilateral relationship, this was going to be an issue, is something that clearly is going to have to be taken cognizant of by the South Africans going forward.

LINDSAY:
Reuben, help me understand what it is that President Ramaphosa thought he was going to accomplish by coming to Washington D.C. What were his goals?

BRIGETY:
Well, the U.S.-South African relationship has been made fraught by a number of issues and not simply during the Trump administration. I mean, this has been brewing certainly during my time as ambassador and even before. And so the confrontation that happened in the Oval Office in many ways was a long time coming. I tell people all the time when I first arrived in South Africa in August 2022, I still had hair on top of my head and I am now bald like you, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Yes, but I lost my hair many decades ago, Reuben.

BRIGETY:
Exactly. And so as I say, the reason that I am bald is that I spent my first year in South Africa lighting my hair on fire trying to help Washington understand that the stakes in South Africa had changed really quite dramatically, and that we had frankly been sleepwalking on the idea of the post 1994 euphoria and had missed a number of very important things, to include the serious rise in anti-Americanism within the African National Congress, which was the ruling party of which President Ramaphosa still remains president. Also included essentially just real serious difficulty in trying to get the South Africans to meet us halfway on matters that we cared about such as agricultural trade, for example, or some geopolitical issues, despite the fact that the United States had proven itself to be a very strong trading partner with South Africa, that it had been a very strong partner in the fight against HIV AIDS and a number of things.
And then obviously the two most searing things that happened during my tenure in South Africa were serious disagreements between our two countries as it related to the war in Ukraine, and then also the really serious differences with regard to the war in Gaza. And so all of those things were seriously coming to a head, but quite frankly, we're largely tempered by the general consensus between Democrats and Republicans over many years that South Africa may be difficult because of our respective history, but we wanted to broadly be supportive of their journey into democracy. And as I said, arguably the most fundamental change in that relationship that President Trump has brought is a complete disregard for that level of historical affinity and a decision to reset the relationship on the basis of a different ideological premise going forward.

LINDSAY:
I want to get into the issues of South Africa's positions on Ukraine and Gaza, but first I'd appreciate it, Reuben, if you could help me understand what accounts for the rise of anti-Americanism in the ANC, given what you've just described, the succession of American administrations that had tried to develop ties with South Africa and were particularly generous when it comes to the battle against HIV AIDS.

BRIGETY:
Sure. Well, I think there are several things. The first is the self-image of the ANC as a revolutionary liberation party that stands in solidarity with what they call other like-minded revolutionary movements around the world. It is that sense of solidarity that quite frankly carried them through the very, very dark days of the struggle against apartheid for many years. But it still continues to animate the ANC as such. And part of the reason, quite frankly, that they have not broadly come to evolve beyond that as it relates to its relations, certainly with the United States, but also other Western powers, is because they haven't had to. One of the things that happened post 1994 is that notwithstanding where any number of countries were in the darkest days of apartheid, when the apartheid finally ended and we saw the beauty of true multi-party, multi-racial democracy, everybody wanted to be part of that story, including the United States, notwithstanding the fact that we were frankly late to the game in supporting multi-racial democracy in South Africa.
And so from the perspective of the ANC, they were getting plaudits in largess from all corners. Whether it be from their historic revolutionary allies, whether it be the Cubans or the Russians or the Iranians, or whether it be from Western powers that from their perspective were not sufficiently bought in the fight. And so the lesson they learned from that is that they can essentially take and receive all this largess without having to fundamentally respond to many of the serious concerns that their partners that are not in that same revolutionary space may hold. Which is another way of saying that the anti-Americanism grew in a context of our not wanting to call it out. And so that is the first aspect. The second aspect was quite frankly, the advent of President Jacob Zuma to head the ANC and then president of South Africa. And so one of the things that was the case during the struggle is that you couldn't just join the ANC.
I mean it was for a host of reasons. In part was the security. So everybody that wanted to be a member of the ANC had to be vetted, had to go through their own sort of indoctrination. They all had mentors. And so they were very, very disciplined in that regard and they had to be in order to withstand the rigors of the struggle against apartheid. But when Jacob Zuma became president, his electoral strategy for continuing to ensure the political dominance of the ANC was to lower the barriers of entry into the party. And so as opposed to having to go through rigorous ideological training and the level of political discipline that quite frankly might have been reflected in the ANC taking a new view of its own foreign policy and then having to respond accordingly, what you had was an awful lot of people coming in at grassroots levels, the so-called structures of the ANC at lower branches, and in that environment, nobody checking these sorts of questions. So one of the things that we would do often during my tenure as ambassador was to make clear that notwithstanding whatever our history was, the United States had repeatedly proven itself to be a strong partner of the aspirations of the South African people. And making that case was becoming increasingly important given the heightened anti-Americanism, but also in some cases really quite channeled.

LINDSAY:
I will note that Jacob Zuma's ascension to the leadership of the ANC also came as the popularity of the ANC in South Africa has declined. Been growing complaints about corruption in the party. And I believe in the most recent elections were the first time that the ANC didn't win outright. But I want to shift to the question of Ukraine. You mentioned it, Reuben. I am struck as I'm sure you were struck by the position that South Africa took on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Can you lay out for us what the rationale was? Because I think many people in Washington and D.C. expected South Africa to stand up against the Russian invasion, and that's not quite how it played out.

BRIGETY:
Well, that is correct, and I think the expectation was that given that South Africa believes very much in a rules-based international order and it's historically stood up for smaller countries, and again, from their perspective, imperialistic ambitions, the reasonable expectation was that in this gross violation of international law in which a sovereign country was invaded unprovoked by their larger neighbor with the intent to erase the sovereignty of that smaller country, one would've thought that the South Africans would've mounted a full-throated defense publicly. They did not.

LINDSAY:
Seemed like a layup.

BRIGETY:
Exactly. They didn't. In fact, worse than they didn't, the African National Congress, if you read their last policy documents, which were published every five years, explicitly blamed the United States for the war in Ukraine and quoted the Wolfowitz Doctrine in writing as suggesting that the United States would never let any other country contest it for position in the world, and therefore had pushed NATO up right against Russia's borders and therefore gave Russia no choice other than to invade Ukraine. I mean, this is the official position of the ruling party of the country at the time, a party that President Ramaphosa serves as head of. And so that gives you ... Now, you can debate why they took that position. And I think the easiest and most facile explanation is that the party ties between the ANC and their former Soviet, now Russian colleagues are strong and there are no similar ties between the ANC and respective political parties in the United States of America. So that I think accounts for a lot of their position.

LINDSAY:
Has there been any softening in the South African position since the war began? I mean, you were there in the thick of it.

BRIGETY:
Sure. Well, one of the things that you would often hear from South Africans in government is that the position of the party is different from the position of the government, which quite frankly was an assertion that was made when it was in their interest to make it, meaning when it was in more of their interest actually to define those differences more and one that was underplayed when it was actually not in their interest to show as much daylight between the party and the government. That has become much harder to assert given the contemporary changes in South African government since the ANC is no longer the majority party in government. We can talk about that in a moment. But yes, it was incredibly difficult. Their position did begin to soften a bit in the summer and early fall of 2023 when it was very clear that this was going to be a challenge in the bilateral relationship and also when the nature of the dichotomy between their stated principles and the actual facts on the ground were becoming clearer and clearer.

LINDSAY:
Well, the other big issue that you mentioned, this has been a challenge in U.S.-South African relations has been the position that South Africa has taken on the war in Gaza, and particularly the very concerted and public efforts by South Africa to use the international criminal court to indict Israeli leaders. Give me some sense of the conversations you had when you were in South Africa on that score.

BRIGETY:
The Palestinian cause is of profound importance to the African National Congress. They often will quote when Nelson Mandela said, to paraphrase Mandela, "We will not be free," meaning we South Africans will not be free, "until our Palestinian brothers are free."

LINDSAY:
Well, this gets back to your notion earlier about the revolutionary affinity that the ANC has for other oppressed people.

BRIGETY:
That's exactly right. And that is combined with a real difficulty between the Israeli and the South African governments. Some of that is historical because the Israelis were close to the apartheid government during apartheid. The current South African government has not forgotten it. And then some of it is because, again, the South Africans see the Israelis as the fundamental oppressors in that space. Now, having said that, it is also true that when looking at the war in Gaza, the government of South Africa, certainly from my perspective, did not condemn anything close to the heinous unpromoted attacks of Hamas on October 7th, 2023 leading to the deadliest day in world jewry since the Holocaust. Raping of Israeli women, killing of Israeli babies. I mean, there simply wasn't as much concern or condemnation. Now, they would tell you that of course they condemn both, but as a matter of reality and taking a look at historical record, it was clear.

LINDSAY:
It was hard to hear them.

BRIGETY:
Exactly. Right. Further, it exacerbated by the fact that the South Africans led the charge to take the Israelis before the International Court of Justice and did not similarly demand public or international accountability for Hamas in their stated objective, destroy the state of Israel and also in their very wicked unprovoked attack against Israeli civilians.

LINDSAY:
One issue we haven't talked about is South Africa's membership in the BRICS. How do South Africans view that organization? Do they see it as a fundamentally anti-Western organization to basically redistribute power around the world? Do they see it merely as a talk shop and they want to be part of the conversation and potential economic juggernaut? None of the above? All of the above?

BRIGETY:
Sure. I think it's a bit of a mix. I think that on the one hand, the South African and the South African government are very proud to be a founding member of the BRICS.

LINDSAY:
So status is part of it?

BRIGETY:
It is absolutely part of it. And when you take a look at the membership of BRICS, literally the only thing they all have in common is a desire to see a different organization of international affairs that is pivoted around something other than American preeminent leadership. Because this is an organization of countries that are small, that are large, that are wealthy, that are poor, that are democracies, that are not democracies, that are from every part—

LINDSAY:
And some that have border conflicts like India and China.

BRIGETY:
Exactly. And so the only thing that unites them is a desire to see a different international order besides one that's underpinned by the United States of America.

LINDSAY:
So thinking of that, where do you see U.S.-South African relations going, and to what extent should the United States be interested in South Africa? I ask that against the backdrop of the point you made at the beginning of our conversation that going forward, U.S. relations with South Africa are likely to be governed by assessments about raw national interest. Do we have overlapping interests?

BRIGETY:
Absolutely we have overlapping interests and I think there are a number of things to think about. Let me start with the second question, which is why does it matter, and then I'll talk about where I think it could go. It matters for the United States for a number of reasons. First of all, South Africa remains the largest, most industrialized economy on the African continent. Africa in itself is going to become extremely important not only for the United States but for the world and not simply because of the presence of critical minerals. We are today in 2025. When you blink and we're at mid-century and we're in 2050, nearly half of the working age population on the planet is going to be in Africa, and at least one quarter of humanity is going to be in Africa. This is going to get sorted. In fact, it has to be because an African continent with the most active population of young people in the world simply has to be able to have its young people find their destiny at home. Because if they can't, the results are going to be quite frankly catastrophic for them and for others beyond.
And South Africa will play a key role in that regard. The second is that South Africa remains a very important voice in what we might continue to call the global south. And since most of the world lives in the so-called global south, being able to have a respectful working dialogue with the South Africans as respected partners I think is very important for our respective interests. Third, specifically for geopolitical issues that we care about as Americans. Whether it be access to critical minerals or whether it be geopolitical access that South Africa has as a result of being at the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans. This is a very important relationship that we have got to be at least workable. I would often say to visiting official Americans that when you hear South African officials talk about China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, they talk about their friendship. When they talk about the United States of America, they talk about their relationship. I say that not because that hurts my feelings as an American, I say it because it demonstrates the ideological orientation of their government and how they broadly see the United States notwithstanding the really significant partnership that we have materially demonstrated across the board from healthcare to economics over the course of the last generation.

LINDSAY:
Well, I have to ask you just on that score. I take your point about where the ANC is, but the ANC is not all of South Africa and the ANC has declining popularity in South Africa. Does that mean that the United States should try to find ways to go around the ANC?

BRIGETY:
Sure. So this is the conundrum, right? When you actually take a look at public opinion polling, you know that the United States is more popular in popular opinion in South Africa than is China. More popular than Russia. The United States is even more popular than the ANC itself. Which then begs a question, why would the largest political party and until recently, the ruling party in South Africa adopt a foreign policy that is fundamentally at odds with the general orientation of its population? And so the challenge going forward is that yes, the ANC is declining in popularity and it's certainly a decline such that they no longer hold the majority, they hold about forty percent or so. But when you take a look at the last elections, the ANC came in at about forty percent. The new party called uMkhonto we Sizwe, which is formed by former president Jacob Zuma, came in at about fifteen percent. And the Economic Freedom Fighters of Julius Malema came in at about ten percent. So both the EFF and the MK came out of the ANC.

LINDSAY:
Right. And the EFF is quite extreme.

BRIGETY:
Exactly.

LINDSAY:
In its demands, fundamentally restructuring South African society.

BRIGETY:
Exactly. Meaning that the ANC or ANC oriented former family members still dominate sixty-five percent of the electorate. And so now we'll see what that does in the local elections next year and then the next national elections. But what you're seeing is basically a political fragmentation in South Africa where the ANC and its fellow travelers as such are no longer strong, but no other grouping of political parties are able to, at this point, mount a credible enough political challenge such that from purposes of this conversation, it might meaningfully change the foreign policy of the country. But I suspect that one of the things that could very well happen, which gets to your first point or where's this relationship going to go going forward, one of the things that could happen is the Trump administration is not simply given a shot across the bow to South Africa. They have now to mixed metaphors. I mean, they have now issued a fundamental shot to the South African system. First by cutting off all foreign aid to include foreign aid as it relates to anti-HIV AIDS care. Most people may not recognize this if you're not following it, but one out of every five human beings on the planet that is HIV positive is South African.

LINDSAY:
That's a startling number.

BRIGETY:
Or to put differently, you actually can't beat the global HIV pandemic unless you're able to beat it in South Africa. And the Trump administration has simply said, "We are now not giving any more assistance period." Until something changes perhaps. And so whereas the previous orientation of the U.S.-South Africa relationship, quite frankly, was underpinned on the story of trying to advance the post-apartheid miracle, going forward, it is going to be based on two fundamental things. One, on being able to have reciprocal interests, principally economic, that are met and understood from both parties and advanced in both parties. And the second is, quite frankly, being able to figure out how to make room for their respective ideological orientations.

LINDSAY:
But I have to ask on that second point, Reuben, whether or not making the South Africans pay a price for taking positions opposite the United States is going to pay off. One possibility is that by raising the price of pursuing divergent policies, Pretoria might curb what it does. Another possibility is it just aggravates the ideological difference and countries double down.

BRIGETY:
There is this beautiful phrase in South Africa that you hear a lot, and it is let us work to find each other. We don't say that in the United States. I wish we did. And basically what it means is let us try to find a way to agree on the places where we do agree and to use that to build muscle memory to address the places where we don't so we have a better chance of finding places where we do agree. You said pay a price. One of the things you hear a lot in South Africa was why are the Americans tried to "punish us" for one thing or another? And I always vehemently rejected that because I think it cheapens the relationship because when you talk about punishment, a parent punishes a child, a jailer punishes an inmate. It fundamentally creates a sense of disrespect and a power imbalance.
What I said instead was, look, South Africa is a sovereign country, as they often say. The United States is also a sovereign country. And the whole point of international affairs is to try to pursue your interests as a sovereign country while anticipating what other sovereign actors will do so that you have a better shot of advancing your interests and preferably advancing them together. Now, what is I think being made bare here is that while there are lots of places where clearly the two countries have an interest in engaging, that there is going to have to be continued serious dialogue on the places where they fundamentally disagree and either figure out how to disagree agreeably or how to weather the respective shocks that are going to come from that level of disagreement. But what we can't do is assume that one party is simply not going to respond to what they consider to be very serious provocations against their interests or against their identity.

LINDSAY:
On that sensible note, I'll close up this episode of The President's Inbox. My guest has been Reuben Brigety, president of Busara Advisors, and former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa. Reuben, as always, a delight to chat.

BRIGETY:
It's a pleasure. Thank you.

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen and leave us your review. We love the feedback. A transcript of our conversation is available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on CFR.org. As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's episode was produced by Justin Schuster and Molly McAnany with recording engineer Bryan Mendives and director of podcasting, Gabrielle Sierra. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.