A phone call this week between President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump appears to have made strides towards resolving the diplomatic fallout between the two countries.
Ramaphosa and Trump are said to have now agreed to meet in person in an effort to resolve three months of hostile relations.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has criticised the South African government, saying “terrible things” were happening in the country after the passing of the Expropriation Act, which he believes is pushing Afrikaner farmers out of the country. He has since offered them refuge in the US.
The Sunday Times understands that in this week’s phone call the two presidents agreed to meet, possibly on the sidelines of a US-Africa summit in the next three months.
The agreement was clinched when the two presidents spoke ahead of this week’s state visit to South Africa by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. He cut short his visit immediately after meeting Ramaphosa due to a Russian air strike on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
This will be the first face-to-face meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump since the latter’s election as US president. It will also be the first time the two leaders will hold talks since the fallout between the two countries over the Expropriation Act, which is meant to address the need for land reform in South Africa.
Diplomatic relations with the US have been fraught after Trump offered what he said was “safe refuge” for Afrikaner farmers keen to “flee” the country over the legislation. The tensions deepened further after the US expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool.
This week was the perfect illustration of the correctness of South Africa’s non-alignment approach. This was illustrated by the fact President Ramaphosa remains one of the world leaders who can pick up the phone and call other world leaders who come from very different vantage points on the conflict in Ukraine
— Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for international relations minister Ronald Lamola
Ramaphosa's spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, confirmed the two presidents had agreed to meet in their phone call this week, during which they also discussed trade and political relations between the two countries, as well as ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Both President Ramaphosa and President Trump have agreed on the need to meet soon and to work on resetting the bilateral relationship. At a personal level, both presidents interact in a cordial and friendly manner,” Magwenya said.
He added that there was a general appetite to normalise the relationship between the two countries. “It will be through their leadership that the relationship will be normalised. Teams on both sides will work on facilitating the meeting and obviously managing a number of scheduling and logistical considerations.”
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for international relations minister Ronald Lamola, told the Sunday Times that the phone call between Ramaphosa and Trump had been successful.
“This week was the perfect illustration of the correctness of South Africa’s non-alignment approach ... [and that] president Ramaphosa ... can pick up the phone and call other world leaders who come from different vantage points on the conflict in Ukraine.”
Phiri made clear he was referring to Ramaphosa’s phone calls with Trump and with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Zelensky’s visit.
Senior government insiders said the fact that Trump and Ramaphosa had spoken for the second time in three months was a significant development. The first call between the two presidents came when Ramaphosa congratulated Trump on his election victory.
Before speaking to Trump this week, Ramaphosa also held a phone call with Putin, days before Zelensky arrived in South Africa.
Ramaphosa was able to speak to the three presidents in the space of three days, something senior government leaders said should not be taken for granted. They said a significant part of the conversation with the three presidents had centred on ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
A government insider said: “How many leaders have spoken to Trump twice in three months that we can point to right now? We also need to look at how many leaders Ramaphosa spoke to in a space of three days and ask how many world leaders can pull that off.”
The meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump will go a long way towards easing tensions, with government insiders saying it will give Ramaphosa an opportunity to explain the implications of the Expropriation Act.
In the phone call, Ramaphosa clarified a few issues that have been of concern to the Americans, and that he believed had not been properly presented to President Trump, Magwenya said.
“Obviously, with the visit of President Zelensky to South Africa, the Ukraine-Russia conflict also featured prominently in their discussion. This is because President Ramaphosa recognises how important the end of this war is to President Trump, and that the US has a lot to contribute to ensuring a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.”
Magwenya said the department of trade & industry was formulating a proposal for a trade deal between South Africa and the US, which the government believed would be mutually beneficial.
“President Ramaphosa is therefore optimistic that we have begun a process to work on normalising our relationship with the US, which we regard as both historical and strategic,” he said.
Trump is said to have appreciated — in his call with Ramaphosa — that the two countries are aligned on more issues than they disagree on.
“There are many things that we see the same with the US. Maybe we are a bit more bullish on other matters, including the Israeli genocide in Palestine, but on many things we are actually agreeing,” said the government insider.
Magwenya said Ramaphosa has maintained a need to urgently meet the Trump administration — to ease the diplomatic tensions by explaining what was happening in the country in relation to their concerns.
“The process was to follow the established diplomatic protocols in doing so. However, the situation escalated quickly, with several pronouncements against South Africa coming out of Washington,” he said.
“Ambassador Rasool started making some progress in engaging the appropriate levels of officials, notwithstanding the reality that there were some vacancies in key areas of the administration that interface with Africa. Regrettably, he got expelled.
“[After] the expulsion of Ambassador Rasool, [international relations and co-operation director-general Zane] Dangor managed to secure key meetings with some senior people in Washington. We got a sense of the issues and the engagements were open and frank.”
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