Last week, most of us who have not had formal diplomatic training had to look up the meaning of the word “démarche”. This is when a country’s government – usually through its Department of Foreign Affairs – summons a diplomat, often an ambassador, to an urgent meeting to protest against something the diplomat has said or done, to request further explanation, or to provide greater clarity on a matter the government in question believes the diplomat should be able to provide.

When a diplomatic dispute arises between two countries, which does happen often, ambassadors are "called in" so that the host country’s government can formally protest the issue over which there is disagreement between the host and the ambassador’s country. However, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) last week decided to use the neat word “démarche” when it announced that the US ambassador to Pretoria, Leo Brent Bozell III, had been taken to task over statements he had made at a conference in Hermanus on Tuesday. DIRCO was also strategic by making its announcement at a media conference after the meeting with Bozell, simply reporting on what Bozell had allegedly admitted to while he was not present to present his side of the matter.

It is important to understand the tactics the ANC has employed over the past few decades, as has DIRCO’s senior leadership, who, too, are ANC ideologues through and through. The ANC sees all relationships, whether they involve domestic or foreign affairs, within the context of power and the struggle to gain, retain, and expand power. The ANC has also, for decades, used the language of “balance of forces”, maintaining that this balance in the relationship between the ANC and some groups and roleplayers, and with the international community, must always be managed in such a way that the ANC gains ground. The strategy is based on small strategic victories that knock the opponent off balance or push them back in such a way that the playing field is shifting all the time, the ANC ultimately getting its way.

The ANC and the International Power Struggle

What, then, does "getting its way" mean for the ANC? The answer is publicly available and is there for everyone to read on the ANC’s website and in every policy document this organisation issues. Thus, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the ANC’s documents referred to what the ANC considers to be essential for the next phase of their revolution in South Africa, with specific reference to economic transformation, but also to a shift in the economic dispensation away from capitalism with an emphasis on the role of the private sector, input-based economic activities, and property rights. The agenda inherent to the National Democratic Revolution remains official ANC policy, proposing a state-centred economic dispensation in which the entire economy is also transformed according to race groups.

However, it is in the context of the international arena that one should again study the ANC’s policy documents carefully to understand how the ANC, and by default also the government in which the ANC retains full control over foreign policy, views its relationship with the US.

During the ANC’s 51st National Conference held in 2002, extensive reference was made to the international “balance of forces”. In paragraphs 50 to 55 of the conference’s discussion document on the balance of forces, which was adopted as policy at the conference, reference is made to, among other things, issues such as “global capitalist dominance” and the setbacks faced by social democrats in Europe and elsewhere. It was subsequently resolved that South Africa, together with other international “progressive forces”, should intensify their efforts towards social transformation.

The document is further fraught with references to “neo-liberal triumphalism”, all the West’s alleged sins and, of course, the familiar delusions about neo-colonialism, the West’s exploitation of Africa and the US’s “undermining sovereignty in poorer nations”.

The same document emphasises the necessity of an international movement of socialist groups and countries from the Global South that can push back against the capitalist North. For the ANC the advent of BRICS has naturally been a positive development in this regard.

The ANC’s (and SA’s) Foreign Policy

There is a very good reason why, for nearly two years, the ANC has firmly dug its heels in, refusing to grant any of the other parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU) any access to DIRCO or a role in the government’s foreign policy. During the GNU negotiations in 2024, the ANC was almost fanatical in its insistence on full control of DIRCO.

For the ANC, the most important ideological power struggle is international in nature. Long before 1994, the ANC was part of a broader anti-Western, anti-capitalist and particularly anti-American international movement. As with many other ANC documents, the very same 2002 policy document refers to the necessity for the ANC to have accepted a Western liberal and a partly capitalist dispensation in 1994 – temporarily – because it was the prevailing trend at the time, and a smooth ANC takeover of power in South Africa would have been difficult to achieve otherwise.

In the ANC’s vocabulary, 1994 was about the “balance of forces”. Since then, South Africa had to participate in an international effort to push back against Western, capitalist systems so that South Africa, too, could finally shake off the yoke of Western capitalism. BRICS and South Africa’s increasingly close ties with Cuba, Iran, Russia, China, and the most leftist governments globally serve as proof of this. Without control over DIRCO, the ANC’s ability to be an international player in the struggle against Western systems and American global influence, in particular, would have been drastically reduced.

Over the past three decades, the ANC has repeatedly referred to China in its policy documents as a model political and economic system. Of course, China is autocratic, politically communist and economically state-driven, characterised by its strong centralism, leaving no room for minorities and with a long-term vision to destroy, or at least counteract, the influence of the US and the West globally, piece by piece.

It would be naïve, even foolish, to misinterpret or underestimate the ANC’s long-term ideological objectives. From the ANC’s perspective, there is clear justification for its recent close cooperation with Iran, including the official signing of a condolence book at the Iranian embassy in Pretoria following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Similarly, there is also a sound reason behind the case South Africa has brought before the International Court of Justice against Israel and behind South Africa’s protests denouncing US pressure on socialist dictatorships in Venezuela and Cuba.

Trump Against the ANC and the Balance of Forces

US President Donald Trump’s frustration with South Africa since January last year has as much in common with geopolitical issues and smart people in his administration who have begun to understand the ANC’s game, as with Trump’s genuine concern over the position of Afrikaners in South Africa and the issue of farm attacks, the Expropriation Act, and black economic empowerment.

What Trump has done over the past 14 months was to expose, in various ways, the ANC’s anti-Western and anti-American agenda. He has also challenged the ANC on its own playing field, where for decades the ANC’s strategic moves have outsmarted opponents, from the old apartheid government and the National Party to large parts of the West, especially in Europe, as well as minorities in South Africa and many other potential opponents and threats.

Trump’s actions resulted in anger and a willingness to confront the US head-on, even at greater cost than naïve South African commentators wanted to acknowledge. Underestimating the ANC always comes at a price. One of the reasons why the ANC fought so hard to retain control of DIRCO in mid-2024 was precisely because there was already a strong possibility that Trump could be elected. The ANC is not good at strategies and plans to establish good governance, curb corruption, grow the economy, maintain infrastructure, and improve people’s lives, but they are very good at playing the balance-of-forces game.

The ANC’s sympathy for Iran and all the missteps in recent months have been seen by many of us as foolish, tone-deaf and simply irresponsible. Perhaps this was precisely the ANC’s way of showing Trump and the US that they are not afraid of him – a calculated way of pushing back against American action towards South Africa while being aware of the economic risks involved.

Bozell Against the ANC

The second person Ambassador Bozell met after his arrival in Pretoria was DIRCO Director-General Zane Dangor. Dangor is a shrewd Islamic ideologue. He is a long-time ally of the former DIRCO minister, Naledi Pandor – also a Muslim and a great friend of the Palestinians, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. We remember how poorly she treated the former US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during his visit to Pretoria a few years ago. At the same time, she rolled out the red carpet for Sergey Lavrov of Russia, describing him as one of the most popular people she had ever met.

Last week, it was the turn of the current DIRCO minister, Ronald Lamola, to carry out the ANC’s project of pushing back against the US. After confronting Bozell about his statements, he held a media conference with none other than Dangor himself alongside him – a big smirk on his face. It was, of course, Dangor's cunning plan to strike quickly and hard, within two weeks of Bozell assuming his official duties.

Bozell and the Trump administration in Washington will have to quickly come to grips with the ANC strategy. What happened last week is that Bozell was given a scare. What if the SA government decides next time to expel him from the country? That would be a major setback for him and the American embassy in Pretoria, as well as for the US government. Now Bozell knows to choose his words carefully.

But more so, the ANC government is now (in terms of foreign affairs) on the front foot. It has the momentum in the struggle against the US. All our naïve capitalists judge the cost of a diplomatic spat in economic terms; the ANC sees everything within the context of the “balance of forces”.

So, Was Bozell Wrong Last Week?

The short and simple answer is no. Bozell’s speech and his subsequent responses during a discussion at the conference in Hermanus should be seen as a whole. He was predominantly positive about South Africa, he described a very positive role for the US in South Africa and outlined the obstacles to greater participation and cooperation.

None of the obstacles are new. In fact, the current US administration’s official position is that “Kill the Boer” is hate speech and that President Cyril Ramaphosa should reject the chanting of this song. Nothing Bozell said about it was new.

The comparisons with Ebrahim Rasool, who was kicked out as South Africa’s ambassador to Washington last year, are outrageous and simply sloppy. Rasool said during a webinar organised by a South African think tank, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Studies, he believes Trump is mobilising a “supremacist” movement in the US and is trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” while the white population in the US is becoming a minority. Rasool deserved to be expelled from the US. In contrast, Bozell did not insult anyone. He simply stated that he thought “Kill the Boer” was hate speech despite the ruling in this regard by the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Bozell’s statements last Tuesday about “Kill the Boer” and the US’s other demands previously made to the South African government are comparable to former US ambassador to China Terry Branstad’s public criticism in 2020 about China’s handling of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. Ambassadors from several countries in Moscow condemned the war in Ukraine four years ago. The EU’s chief diplomat in Budapest has repeatedly made strong statements against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in recent years. A few years ago, the British ambassador to the Ivory Coast publicly confronted President Laurent Gbagbo and urged him to respect the election results in that country. Fair, non-personal criticism expressed by ambassadors is perfectly normal.

What Next?

Bozell and the Trump administration in Washington cannot allow themselves to be intimidated by the ANC and DIRCO. While DIRCO is trying to push back against Bozell with pompous language, Fikile Mbalula, ANC Secretary-General and a contender to become ANC president and run the country in the future, has launched a brutal attack on Bozell in numerous messages on X. This is typical of the ANC’s style in the struggle to restore the “balance of forces”.

The ANC and its ideological friends, all under pressure from the US, cannot now allow an assertive US ambassador to play an active political role in South Africa. This must be stopped at all costs. This is what happened last week. Bozell and the Trump administration will need to act more strategically and shrewdly and will have to push back against the ANC and DIRCO. The ANC has never governed South Africa well, but it has also, for decades, outmanoeuvred almost every opponent. That is why it is necessary to take the ANC on according to its own terms. There is no better time than right now to push back hard against the ANC, and for that, an assertive US ambassador is of great importance.