Meyer arrived in Washington after months of strain in the relationship between South Africa and the United States (US). The key question is whether he has been sent with a strong enough mandate to negotiate not only trade terms, but a broader investment pact capable of lifting South Africa’s weak fixed-investment rate.

The Common Sense has previously argued that the US had been open to such a deal for some time, but that Pretoria had repeatedly delayed or obstructed progress. The report said US officials had hoped South Africa would send an ambassador with both a plan and the authority to negotiate difficult policy questions.

It remains unclear whether Pretoria is willing to grant either – even as South Africa remains a stand-out global laggard in coming to terms with Trump’s America.

By The Common Sense’s estimates, economies accounting for around 60.0% of global GDP have concluded tariff deals with the US over the past two years. Excluding the roughly 25.0% of global GDP accounted for by the US itself, that leaves South Africa among the economies making up the remaining 10.0% to 15.0% of global GDP that have not yet reached such a deal.

That places South Africa increasingly outside the main current of global trade realignment. While many major economies have moved to secure terms with Washington, Pretoria has yet to land an agreement that could protect exporters, improve market access, and strengthen investor confidence.

The issues likely to shape any serious negotiation include South Africa’s empowerment policies, property rights, and foreign policy alignment. On each of these points the Americans have good grounds for concern.

South Africa’s empowerment policies act as a tax on investment and thereby serve as a non-tariff barrier to trade. Its expropriation policies would allow Pretoria to seize for less than market value the capital and assets of American firms invested in the country. And its foreign policy alignment, especially with regards to Iran, poses a direct threat to US national security interests.

Meyer’s task, therefore, is not to convince Washington that a deal is worthwhile. It is instead to convince Pretoria that such a deal is in South Africa’s national interest and will require a climb-down on all three policy issues.

There are doubts over whether that support will be forthcoming. Pretoria appears to be calculating that Trump may suffer a setback in the November midterm elections, weakening his bargaining position. A Congress controlled by the Democratic Party may also be seen as less likely to press South Africa on black economic empowerment (BEE) laws, property rights, and its foreign policy stance.

Just last week President Cyril Ramaphosa told Parliament that the BEE policy had been successful and cited the mining industry as an example. Data, however, shows that capital investment in mining exploration is down by 80% in real terms since 1994. Pretoria also maintains that it has never sought to expropriate investor assets when it did in fact expropriate mineral rights and water rights from their commercial owners and is currently working to expropriate health insurance funds.

If Meyer can only secure limited improvements on trade terms, the economic effect is likely to be modest. Trade arrangements such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) matter to affected exporters, but they are not large enough on their own to shift South Africa’s investment rate or materially change the country’s growth path.

A very low proportion of South Africa’s total exports, perhaps near 2.0%, go to the US through special-purpose arrangements such as AGOA. Many other products are in practice exempted from export tariffs. That means the larger economic prize is not simply preferential access for a narrow band of exporters, but a wider trade and investment pact that could help unlock capital, improve certainty, and lift fixed investment.

The larger prize would be a trade and investment pact that gives investors greater certainty and helps lift fixed capital formation. That would require Pretoria to confront the domestic policy issues that have long held back investment.

For example, private South African actors have proposed a massive critical minerals and investment pact centred on Saldanha Bay.

The idea was advanced after talks in Washington facilitated by Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder, venture capitalist André Pienaar, and his Washington office head Chris Opperman. They argued that the Trump administration could support a reset in US and South African relations built around critical minerals, energy, logistics, and security technology. Their core proposal was a “secure Saldanha prosperity corridor”. Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape would become the anchor point for a US-backed strategic investment corridor linking mining, mineral processing, liquid natural gas (LNG) imports, power supply, logistics, data infrastructure, and port security.

The proposed pact included several linked parts.

South Africa would give the US strategic access to critical minerals such as platinum group metals, manganese, vanadium, rare earths, and titanium. The US would respond with long-term offtake commitments, financing for processing capacity, and reserve build programmes through agencies such as the Departments of Defense and Energy.

Saldanha Bay was proposed because it has direct Atlantic access, an existing Special Economic Zone, and potential links into the Lobito Corridor through Angola and Zambia. The plan also included a possible LNG terminal for US gas imports, power support from Koeberg and possible small modular reactors, and energy intensive industries such as data centres.

The broader bargain was that this minerals-first pact could justify lowering South Africa’s general tariff rate to 10.0% and preserving AGOA access. The proponents claimed it could lift South African GDP by $40 billion and create around 500 000 jobs, while generating more than $75 billion in direct gains for the US.

In response to that proposal, made at a time when South Africa’s official negotiators were obfuscating on a deal, legacy media outlets in South Africa ran false news reports that these third-party actors were seeking to stymie a pact with Washington. The South African intelligence services ran an operation to drive that message.

Meyer is unlikely to get Pretoria’s support for any deal of that scale. The government has shown little willingness to make the requisite policy concessions even within South Africa’s own domestic economy. It is therefore difficult to see why it would empower Meyer to make them in Washington.