Conservative US think-tank the Hudson Institute has warned South Africa the United States could impose broad sanctions against it, including exclusion from the SWIFT global banking system.
“Complete sanctions [are] a distinct possibility, due to all the variables,” Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at the institute, which has close ties with the administration of President Donald Trump, told the Sunday Times.
Suggestions that South Africa could be blocked from SWIFT — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — first emerged over Pretoria’s refusal to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine in 2022.
Exclusion from the payments platform was among sanctions imposed on Russian banks at the time. The measure hobbles a country’s ability to send and receive cross-border payments, with severe repercussions for trade, among other things.
More recently, South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which raised the ire of both the Trump administration and the previous government of president Joe Biden, has led to renewed speculation about tough action against Pretoria.
South Africa was also one of the countries that brought a separate complaint in the International Criminal Court (ICC) that led to warrants of arrest for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the department of international relations and co-operation, said the Hudson Institute viewed the world through a lens that “expects South Africa to conduct its affairs only in the interest of the US and while undermining its sovereignty and national interests”.
We hold no brief for Hamas and believe that the actions [of both Hamas and Israel] are rightfully before the ICC as war crimes
— Chrispin Phiri, Dirco
“We hold no brief for Hamas and believe that the actions [of both Hamas and Israel] are rightfully before the ICC as war crimes,” Phiri said.
“South Africa will continue to act within the institutions of global governance to protect the rights, including the fundamental right to life, of Palestinians in Gaza — who continue to remain at urgent risk, including from Israeli military assault, starvation and disease — and to obtain the fair and equal application of international law to all, in the interest of our collective humanity.”
Meservey said he hoped the Trump administration did not impose general sanctions such as exclusion from SWIFT.
“I am a firm proponent of targeted sanctions. We know who the bad actors are,” he said. “Broad, indiscriminate measures [such as] removing [South Africa] from SWIFT will, of course, hurt the right people, but there will unfortunately also be a lot of collateral damage.”
On April 3, congressman Ronny Jackson introduced legislation in the House of Representatives accusing the ANC and the government of directly favouring “China, Russia and Hamas, a known proxy of Iran, and thereby undermining US national security and foreign policy interests”.
The act, if passed, would trigger a full review of the relationship between the US and South Africa “and identify South African government officials and ANC leaders eligible for the imposition of sanctions, and for other purposes”.
On the same day, Texas congressman Troy Nehls introduced the Asylum for Farmers and Refugees in Crisis and Necessary Emigration Resettlement (Afrikaner) Act, which would pave the way for Afrikaners who have “suffered persecution, or have a well-founded fear of persecution, on account of their race, ethnicity or ancestry” to enter the US as refugees.
Meservey said things could get a lot worse for South Africa if the ANC persisted with its anti-Israeli stance and continued to maintain warm relation with China, Iran and Russia.
“In the last decade, they have shown repeatedly that they are fine with building relationships with some of the worst people and governments on the planet — everyone from the designated terrorist organisation Hamas to China.
“But a central irritant [for the US] is the South African government’s decision to take Israel to the ICJ,” he said, citing the way that Jackson’s proposed sanctions legislation placed heavy emphasis on South Africa’s stance on Israel.
He said targeted sanctions would be similar to those imposed on Russian oligarchs. “We hit them where it hurts — in their pockets, international prestige and freedom of international movement.”
Phiri said the government had engaged with the Hudson Institute on several occasions. “It’s not clear to me why Meservey & Co insist on conflating the party and the state in their views.”
Human rights activist Nicole Fritz, whose civil society leadership roles including having been executive director of the Helen Suzman Foundation, said that in the past three decades South Africa had become “one of the lights along the road for international democracy”.
“The fact that this country took Israel to the ICJ is what is getting under America’s skin. People would do well to remember that Nelson Mandela himself said in 1997 that ‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’”
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