Last week, Russia stepped in for South Africa after the latter was excluded from the G20 summit by President Donald Trump, which will take place in Florida, in the United States (US) in December. It certainly does not create the best picture when the only country willing to intervene on your behalf is not a respected democracy, but Russia. Respected democracies prefer to remain silent – and with good reason – regarding South Africa and the G20 summit.

While the White House moots kicking South Africa off the list of beneficiaries of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for 2027, it is considering allowing countries such as Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Gabon, and even Zimbabwe, back as beneficiaries in future. We do not yet know what the list of beneficiaries will look like in 2027, but South Africa’s relationship with the US is going from one low point to the next. Is all of this simply because of President Donald Trump and his combative attitude towards South Africa?

The time may finally have come to state what has long been obvious: South Africa’s flawed foreign policy has been years in the making. It is the result of ideological rigidity, weak and indecisive leadership, an old grudge against the West, and conceptions of South Africa’s international position that simply no longer correspond with reality.

Eight years of outspoken criticism of South Africa

In June 2018, the embassies of the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland sent a memorandum to the Presidency in which they expressed their concern about frequent changes to industrial policy, including mining, and the protection of intellectual property rights. They were also worried about the effect of black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) targets on international investment in the South African economy.

In the memorandum, the five embassies warned President Cyril Ramaphosa that his $100 billion international investment drive would fail without a clear political commitment to the rule of law and the prosecution of those involved in state capture.

In retrospect, their prediction came true. At the time, these five countries together accounted for approximately 75% of South Africa’s total foreign direct investment. Instead of recognising the seriousness of the matter, President Ramaphosa, as is usually the case, remained silent, while his then Minister of International Relations, Lindiwe Sisulu, attacked the five countries and accused them of a breach of protocol.

After Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began, South Africa’s false pretense of a non-aligned foreign policy was exposed. The initial criticism of the Russian invasion, followed by the withdrawal of that criticism, proved that the Ramaphosa government places ideology and historical alliances above the interests of South Africa and its people.

At the United Nations (UN), South Africa has often sided with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and similar anti-Western countries, over the past four years by failing to condemn the war. South Africa’s naval exercises with Russia and the Lady R incident in December 2022, when a sanctioned Russian ship docked at the Simon’s Town naval base, reaffirmed the nakedness of the South African emperor, and the false image of a non-aligned cloak.

The American ambassador appointed by the pro-Ramaphosa Democrat Joe Biden, Reuben Brigety, claimed, based on thorough American intelligence, that weapons were loaded onto the Lady R. Whether that is true, we will never know, but what we do know is that the mere presence of a Russian ship at Simon's Town at night created enormous international suspicion.

Then followed South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Africa’s decision at the end of 2023 to accuse Israel of genocide at the ICJ is regarded as one of the greatest diplomatic mistakes since 1994. The simple question that can be asked is: “In what ways has this case served South Africa’s foreign relations, the economy of our country, and the well-being of our people?” Meanwhile, President Ramaphosa refuses to reject Russia’s actions in Ukraine, China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority, or Iran’s massive slaughter of protesting citizens in January.

South Africa lobbying for Iran’s membership of BRICS, the country’s downgrading of Taiwan’s representation in South Africa to please Beijing, and repeated statements in favour of despots and dictators, from Cuba and Venezuela to numerous African countries and the Middle East, have largely discredited the country’s commitment to a free, democratic-liberal order.

The emperor has no clothes

The cracks in South Africa’s non-aligned armour, of course, extend much further back than this list of events since 2018. Various statements, controversial visits, financial and other support to Cuba, for example, and South Africa’s almost permanent voting against the US, and other Western and pro-democracy countries, at the UN, date back to the 1990s. The decline in South Africa’s ability to project an image of non-alignment in foreign policy has been underway far longer than Donald Trump has been involved in politics.

The question is surely: “What could and should South Africa have done differently?” It begins, of course, with leadership. The country simply has not had the correct, and inspiring, leaders in the right places at the right times. From Nelson Mandela to Thabo Mbeki to Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa, and each of the foreign ministers serving with them, the country has steadily gone backwards.

What does a leader who improves a country’s global influence look like?

The great American statesman Henry Kissinger discusses in his book Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy six of the greatest 20th-century heads of state, and the single quality that made them stand out. According to Kissinger, Konrad Adenauer is remembered for his humility, Charles de Gaulle for his strong will, Richard Nixon for his equilibrium, Anwar Sadat for his transcendent, or almost extra-sensory abilities, Lee Kuan Yew for his excellence, and Margaret Thatcher for her strong convictions.

Although these six great leaders are remembered for different strengths, leadership styles and political legacies, Kissinger writes that all six possessed a penetrating sense of reality and a powerful vision for their countries. He puts it bluntly: “Mediocre leaders are unable to distinguish the significant from the ordinary; they tend to be overwhelmed by the implacable aspect of history. Great leaders experience the timeless requirements of statesmanship and distinguish, among the many elements of reality, those that contribute to an elevated future and must be promoted from others that must be managed and, in the extreme case, perhaps merely endured.”

Sadat and Nixon inherited difficult wars from their predecessors — the struggle for control of the Sinai Peninsula between Egypt and Israel, and the Vietnam War — while they had to try to overcome deep-rooted international rivalries that could further threaten their own countries’ stability.

Thatcher and Adenauer decisively oriented their countries’ foreign policy closer to the US because they were rightly convinced that this would be advantageous to their own national interest.

Lee and De Gaulle chose a lesser degree of alignment with the world’s geopolitical poles, which was appropriate to the changing circumstances in their countries at the time.

Although all six of these leaders had different foreign strategies, they were clear, direct, courageous, and decisive. National interest was more important to all six of these leaders than ideology, historical alliances, self-interest, the interests of pressure groups, and party-political demands.

Clearly, Ramaphosa possesses none of the exceptional qualities Kissinger describes. In fact, South Africa has now been punished for almost a decade with an indecisive president, who cannot articulate a vision for the country, and cannot develop a foreign policy that puts the national interest of South Africa and its people first.

There was great hope for South Africa

In 2015, the British historian Tim Marshall described in his book Prisoners of Geography the outstanding advantages South Africa has over almost every other country on the African continent and why South Africa is best positioned to dominate growth and opportunities in Africa in the future. While Marshall is correct in his assessment of South Africa’s geographic advantages at the southern tip of Africa, the country’s ports, plateau regions that are largely malaria-free, and agricultural potential, his insight into South Africa ends there. The few pages Marshall writes about South Africa and Southern Africa today read more like a fable and a prediction of precisely everything that has not happened since 2015.

Without a doubt, much can be said about the fact that a respected historian such as Marshall could not, or would not, yet see the signs of decay, mismanagement, and state capture in South Africa in 2015, but he was not alone in this naivety. Most world leaders and countries still preferred to look away from South Africa’s mistakes in 2015, and rather focus on the romanticised image of the Rainbow Nation, which by then had already begun to fade.

Marshall’s references to, and predictions about, South Africa’s excellent defence force, the country’s role in bringing peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the country’s outstanding rail service that would unlock opportunities across southern Africa and enable it to take the lead in the region in future, and South Africa’s leadership role in organisations such as the Southern African Development Community have all since been proven wrong.

What now?

South Africa needs a realignment of its foreign policy. The reality is that Ramaphosa is approaching the end of his term. He has failed miserably to deepen or expand South Africa’s global position. Perceptions of South Africa across the world have weakened under his leadership, and the country is no longer the economic leader, the diplomatic giant, or has the military power at the southern tip of Africa that liberal writers such as Marshall still hoped for just over a decade ago.

Countries in the West remain South Africa’s largest trading partners. Exports to the US, and member states of the European Union, are far larger than those to South Africa’s great friends such as Russia or Iran. China is important, but South Africa has a huge trade deficit with China that is growing daily, and limited investment from China simply cannot be compared with investment in our economy from Western countries.

Our participation in AGOA, which particularly benefits the automotive and agricultural industries, is now under more serious threat than ever before. It is completely irrational to have a foreign policy that alienates the countries that invest the most in our country, that readily buy products and services from us, and with whom we maintain a healthy trade surplus, while the “allies” in BRICS deliver few concrete economic benefits in their relationship with South Africa and are often authoritarian, oppressive regimes that contradict the country’s ’s purported morals.

The African National Congress (ANC) as a party increasingly looks tired and outdated. The ANC worldview, which places historical gratitude towards Moscow and an anti-Western identity above South Africa’s current interests, is also outdated. South Africa needs a genuinely non-aligned foreign policy. We must be an attractive investment destination for the US and Europe. The US must want to keep us in AGOA, not because organisations such as Solidarity, and South African industries, plead for it, but because it makes sense for the Americans.

To get there, everyone must play their part. Parties such as the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Inkatha Freedom Party, and others in the Government of National Unity, must push harder for a more pragmatic, non-ideological foreign policy that puts trade, investment and shared democratic norms first.

Civil society organisations must organise around this, deepen their pressure on the government, expand foreign pressure, and inform, educate and mobilise South African citizens around the ideas that an improved foreign policy contains.

The battle is not yet lost, but South Africa is in a dangerous place in a rapidly changing world full of uncertainty and instability. It can only be managed with firm, visionary leadership — and for now it does not look as if that leadership will come from the Union Buildings.

Jaco Kleynhans is head of public liaison with Solidarity