L Brent Bozell III, the United States ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, and Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s incoming ambassador to the United States, enter their roles at a difficult moment. Washington and Pretoria do not see the world in the same way.

South Africa views itself as a sovereign leader of the Global South, not as an appendage of Western strategy. Both countries are being forced to ask a harder question: what can this relationship actually produce?

That reality should be faced head-on.

A sweeping diplomatic reset is unlikely to persuade either capital. What can work is more practical: deal-by-deal cooperation that produces measurable benefits without asking either country to surrender its worldview.

One such deal is already on the table.

For the past five years, we have proposed a structured transaction involving Denel Pretoria Metal Pressings, known as Denel PMP. We have spent those years in extensive negotiations, working through the commercial, operational, empowerment, compliance, and regulatory dimensions required for a serious proposal, not a press release.

It does not require an Act of Parliament. It does not require South Africa to abandon black economic empowerment (BEE). It does not require privatisation. It has been before Denel PMP’s leadership and awaits a decision.

Strategic

That decision matters because Denel PMP is not simply another state-owned asset in trouble. Its factories represent one of South Africa’s strategic ammunition and metal-pressing capabilities, tied to military readiness, police supply, commercial ammunition, industrial employment, and export potential.

Countries preserve sovereignty through capability. They preserve it when they can manufacture, maintain, test, supply, train, employ, and improve. They preserve it when engineers stay, artisans work, operators produce, and industrial knowledge is passed to the next generation.

By that measure, South Africa is facing a warning that should not be ignored.

Denel PMP has been described in the media as a shell of its former self, with only 96 engineers and scientists left, fewer than 1 600 total employees, and fewer than 200 technicians and project managers. This loss of critical talent to Denel PMP has diminished its ability to support South Africa’s sovereign defence needs.

That is the heart of the matter. A country does not lose defence sovereignty only when it sells a factory. It can lose more than sovereignty quietly when production lines slow, equipment ages, salaries wither, engineers leave, artisans retire, and institutional memory disappears.

South Africa cannot afford to let that happen at Denel PMP.

Difficult Inheritance

The company’s leadership faces a difficult inheritance, and no serious person should pretend that rebuilding the enterprise will be simple. But difficulty is not an argument for allowing its collapse.

Our proposal is designed to prevent that outcome. It is not an equity acquisition. It is not outright ownership. It is not asset stripping. It is not privatisation by another name. In fact, not a single nut or bolt at the facility would be privatised, and the whole enterprise would remain the property of the people and government of South Africa.

The proposed structure is a fixed-term lease and operating arrangement. We are prepared to invest hundreds of millions of rand to restore production, create jobs, modernise operations, strengthen productivity, preserve expertise, transfer skills to the next generation, and make a strategic asset productive again.

Bringing Denel PMP closer to international standards means improving worker safety, and making the facility safer, more disciplined, and more reliable for the people who work there.

Priority

The first priority would be South Africa, with a laser focus on restoring production capabilities in service of the South African National Defence Force, the South African Police Service, and the local commercial market. Only after that foundation is rebuilt will export opportunities be pursued, bringing foreign currency, growth, and investment back into South Africa under lawful control.

Critics of cross-border defence partnerships involving strategic assets are right to ask hard questions. South Africa has every reason to guard its sovereign capabilities carefully. It should reject any arrangement that turns local assets into mere market-access vehicles while value, skills, and decision-making move elsewhere.

But that is not this proposal.

We do not ask South Africa to loosen its defence controls. We want oversight by Denel, the Ministry of Defence, and the relevant authorities under the National Conventional Arms Control Act 41 of 2002. Defence manufacturing is not ordinary commerce. Ammunition production must remain subject to national-security scrutiny, lawful export controls, and accountable oversight.

Restoring Denel PMP is not only a defence question. It is also a policing, commercial supply, employment, and industrial policy question.

Not an Obstacle

This is why BEE must not be treated as an obstacle or afterthought. We have treated BEE participation as a structural requirement, and we are actively engaging with potential partners. A credible future for Denel PMP must include meaningful South African participation, not mere cosmetic compliance.

Our executive team would be primarily and majority South African nationals. South African ownership, BEE participation, Denel oversight, National Conventional Arms Control Committee controls, and domestic-first production would all remain built into the structure. The purpose is not to remove capability from South Africa. The purpose is to keep capability alive inside South Africa.

The alternative is not sovereignty. The alternative is the current cycle of bailouts, delays, underinvestment, uncertainty, salary stress, skills loss, and missed opportunities.

That is not a theoretical concern. Denel PMP and Denel Dynamics employees were told in January that the divisions could not pay salaries before the group later scrambled to make payment. No sovereign industrial capability is secure when the people who carry that capability must wonder whether they will be paid.

Practical

This is where the two ambassadors can make a practical difference.

One will represent Washington in Pretoria. The other will represent Pretoria in Washington. Both will be judged, in part, by whether this relationship can still produce results.

Ambassador Bozell, the United States has an interest in proving that its relationship with South Africa can still produce concrete results without demanding that Pretoria abandon its own worldview.

Ambassador Meyer, South Africa has an interest in showing Washington that engagement does not require surrendering sovereignty, transformation, strategic autonomy, or domestic control.

Denel PMP offers both of you a place to start.

The ask is straightforward: look closely at this proposal. Ask why a non-privatising, BEE-conscious, commercially serious transaction has remained in limbo for five years. Convene the relevant parties. Test the objections. If the deal cannot proceed, let it fail on its merits, not from silence.

Benefits

But if it can proceed, the benefits are real for both nations.

Hundreds of jobs can be created. Workers can operate in safer conditions. Production can be restored. Engineering and manufacturing capacity can be preserved. The needs of the SANDF, the nation’s police, as well as local commercial requirements can be better served. Export opportunities will eventually generate foreign currency. A strategic state-owned asset can remain in South African hands while gaining the capital and operational discipline needed to become productive for generations.

That is not privatisation. It is stewardship.

For too long, the debate around Denel has been trapped between nostalgia and crisis. One side remembers what Denel PMP once was. The other sees only what has gone wrong. South Africa deserves a third option: practical restoration.

This one deal will not resolve every disagreement between Washington and Pretoria. It will not erase disputes over global alignment, trade, security policy, or diplomatic posture. But it can prove something important at a moment when proof is badly needed.

It can prove that the United States and South Africa can still work together where interests overlap, where laws are respected, where local ownership is preserved, and where the outcome is jobs, production, safety, capability, and growth.

Sovereignty is not protected by paralysis.

It is protected by production, skill, ownership, law, and the courage to act before a strategic capability disappears.

Denel PMP is where that work can begin.

Daniel Serralde is the Managing Director for Omusha, a defence-industrials investment firm engaged in Africa, Latin America and the United States. He is an experienced international political economy relations analyst and strategic advisor.