Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za
26 May 2025 | 15:00 CAT
3 min read

Last week was a significant one for global diplomacy, with President Cyril Ramaphosa visiting Washington and having what many described as an awkward encounter with former US President Donald Trump.

In the Debrief Report, Qaanitah Hunter, political analyst and journalist, highlighted that there are a lot of contrarian views on this. “Whether South Africa should have humbled itself in the way that it had, and that Trump would have always sought to embarrass South Africa, and that’s what he did with the rolling out of the television and playing those clips that he said proved white genocide, which definitely did not,” she said.

Hunter explained that these claims have been widely discredited. “The world has proved that there’s deep misinformation and disinformation in this claim,” she added.

So why did Ramaphosa insist on the meeting? “Ramaphosa had to sort of angle his way into the White House. Because there is a sort of ticking time bomb – Trump’s unilateral tariffs, South Africa can’t afford that,” Hunter noted.

She pointed out how the US once allowed tariff-free trade under AGOA, but that has changed. “Trump put a 30% tariff on the rest of the world, which included South Africa. He then suspended that to 10%, and that’s in place up until July. Our citrus farmers, nut farmers, etc., cannot afford it,” she said.

Hunter highlighted a significant development that occurred during the White House press briefing. “A reporter asked Donald Trump about South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel. When South Africa took Israel to the ICJ on charges of genocide, it angered the US quite severely. But Trump is nonchalant about it. The US delegation doesn’t talk about Israel with South Africa. It is interesting to see a shift in the global geopolitical power play as we know there has been some fallout between Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, and Donald Trump,” she said.

Back home, South Africa is in a fragile position. “The economy is in an awful situation. We are possibly tethering around a 74% debt-to-GDP ratio, which is absolutely untenable. The amount of money that we spend on just servicing interest costs, South Africa just doesn’t make sense,” she said.

She suggests things may get worse. “South Africa cannot afford to gamble with the 500,000 jobs that are a direct result of the industries that export to the US. The warning shots are that South Africa is going to be pushed in a corner, and will not be able to have a moral high ground because, essentially, he who pays the piper chooses the tune,” said Hunter.

This is playing out already with companies like Elon Musk’s Starlink. “We will not comply with your B-BBEE rules that call for 30% local ownership. And you’ll bend the rules. The minister of telecoms will try to bend the rules… by issuing a gazette that calls for an equivalent program like spending a little bit of money on empowering people, and then you don’t have to have this 30% requirement. Which is highly debatable,” she explained.

Looking at the political messaging behind the Trump meeting, Hunter stated that it is simply a fight against transformation.

She pointed out that recent crime stats don’t support the claims of white farmers being targeted. “Of all the farm attacks and murders that happened in the first quarter of the year, one of the victims was white. Actually, it’s black people who are affected more,” Hunter added.

Her final message was one of warning and hope: “We have seen a vulnerability of South Africa for people who have not come on board the democratic project… who want to see South Africa continue to be the most unequal society in the world.”

Hunter emphasised that for those accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression. “South Africa has a lot of nation-building to do. We cannot give up on the transformation project, and we cannot succumb to the right-wing fringe, and the left-wing fringe, in some ways, that are seeking to divide us and pull us apart when everything else says otherwise,” Hunter advised.

LISTEN to the full interview with Apa Shaakira Hunter and Qaanitah Hunter, political analyst and journalist, here.