Relations between the two countries have been frayed for more than a decade and have deteriorated significantly under the tenure of President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government has failed to secure trade and investment pacts with the United States (US) even as the bulk of global economies, including America’s key geopolitical rivals, have done so.

Recently the South African government installed Roelf Meyer, a former colleague of Ramaphosa at the time of South Africa’s democracy negotiations, as Ambassador to Washington. But Meyer appears not to have been given a mandate to agree to trade and investment terms.

The American government has long held that South Africa threatens the property rights of foreign investors, that its empowerment policies act as a non-tariff barrier, and that the country’s foreign policy threatens US security interests. The South Africans have rejected all three claims and said they are not prepared to budge on policy even as the local economy remains mired in low growth and high unemployment as a function of its very low investment rate, a problem that even local investors say arises from the very concerns voiced by the US.

Now veteran South African leader Thabo Mbeki has entered the fray.

Speaking this week in Pretoria at an event celebrating the 250th anniversary of US independence tomorrow, Mbeki, building the common ground needed for renewed sound relations, said, “As the US Revolutionary War of Independence raged between 1775 and 1783, what is called the First Frontier War in our country took place during the same period, between 1779 and 1781” and that the two nations, “separated from each other by the great expanse of the Atlantic Ocean”, had in common the fact that both of their establishments “involved confrontation with the then British government”.

Speaking of the struggle against apartheid, Mbeki said, “You can imagine the situation during those years when the apartheid machinery of oppression seemed invincible, but during which we as young activists against apartheid rule gained enormous strength, inspiration, and encouragement from the famous words we recited, quoting the US Declaration of Independence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ and also, ‘that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government’”

According to Mbeki, “We cited these statements because we were convinced that they directly applied to our own situation.”

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, Mbeki said, “I can also say the same about the famous words spoken by President Abe Lincoln in his 1863 Gettysburg Address, when he said, ‘This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’”

Mbeki’s strongest statement was that the passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act by the US Congress “was exactly this kind of decisive action in support of the very founding principles of the United States which made the US one of the architects of our country’s liberation from apartheid and racial domination”.

Mbeki concluded by saying, “I am honoured to convey warm 250th birthday greetings to yourself, Ambassador Bozell, and your colleagues at the US Embassy and the Consulates in our country, as well as humbly request that you convey the same to the President, government and people of the United States of America.”

The Americans will be encouraged by Mbeki’s intervention, given that his term in office as South Africa’s president saw the economic growth rate lift to 5% of GDP, as the number of people in employment was doubled, government debt levels cut in half, and the country’s first budget surpluses recorded. Through that period, South Africa retained sound relations with all global powers and was respected in global diplomatic circles. Support for the ANC peaked under Mbeki.

Data produced by South Africa’s Social Research Foundation show that Mbeki remains a highly respected figure in the country.

Mbeki’s efforts therefore mark a useful longer-term diplomatic channel via which to restore US-SA relations, given the collapse in confidence in Ramaphosa’s commitment to that restoration (it is widely read that he has no interest in that restoration) and statements damning of the US administration made by the new DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, which The Common Sense has been told have knocked the DA out of the running in terms of being taken seriously at the highest levels of Washington decision making.

Mbeki is not alone in African National Congress (ANC) circles in having a higher and more sophisticated view. There are others in government and outside of the Ramaphosa circle of the ANC who agree that it is very important for South Africa to secure sound relations with the United States. (The Common Sense also understands, for example, that Patrice Motsepe, were he to take over the ANC leadership, would prioritise a restoration of relations.)

Those reasons include that American investment in South Africa is an essential element in the country staging an economic turnaround. The US government is very keen to expand its investment footprint in Africa, but South Africa’s government has evaded and undermined every opportunity to do that over the past two years, quite at odds with misleading media reporting to the contrary.

South Africa is also a very important “chokepoint state” through its control of the naval base at Simonstown, which guards the passage from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Simonstown is one of three points that command access to the Indian Ocean – an ocean through which more than half of all trade that travels by sea passes.

By exploiting that geography, South Africa could in time resume a serious diplomatic role for itself in the great power battle between China and America that will characterise the next 20 years of global politics.

Beyond all that, the people of both countries have a lot in common. South Africa is a centrist, small-“c” conservative Christian society in the main, a natural ally therefore for the United States in Africa, even as South Africa rightly deepens trade and investment relations with China.