EDITORIAL | Ambassador’s bluster does not bode well for SA-US relations

Pretoria’s decision this week to démarche US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III over his public utterances about the situation in the country serves to underline once more the precarious relationship between South Africa and the US.

Normally, the role of a diplomatic envoy is to improve relations between his home country and his hosts, rather than deliberately worsen them. It is, indeed, part of an ambassador’s job to represent the interests of his country and convey its views on any number of issues pertinent to relations between the respective nations.

In Bozell’s case, the rub lies in the method. Instead of engaging with the South African government through recognised diplomatic channels, he seems to prefer the megaphone, perhaps in the hope of riling his hosts until they succumb to his country’s demands or, at worst, expel him.

Would his government tolerate critical comments about the political situation in the US by a foreign envoy?

South Africa’s rebuke of Bozell followed his remarks that Washington was “running out of patience” with South Africa’s failure to respond to the “five asks” it put to Pretoria. These “asks” — effectively demands — range from black economic empowerment to land expropriation and critical minerals policies.

Irrespective of the merit or otherwise of these demands, the constructive way for Bozell to have raised them would have been through diplomatic channels.

Would his government tolerate critical comments about the political situation in the US by a foreign envoy? Notably, it could not endure unflattering comments about US President Donald Trump made by former South African ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool, resulting in his expulsion from the US.

This week, international relations & co-operation minister Ronald Lamola was, for the umpteenth time, at pains to explain and justify the policies the US complains about — a futile undertaking if Bozell and his government choose to remain wilfully deaf.

Rather than nurturing healthy and mutually respectful relations with our country, Bozell seems bent on issuing instructions and public threats, which does not bode well for ties between Pretoria and Washington.