It turns out a letter signed by Afrikaner academics and some business leaders critical of the Trump administration’s concerns about crime, expropriation, race laws, and weak economic growth in South Africa was not an organic civic action but instead a dirty-tricks disinformation operation run by South Africa’s intelligence services.

Sigh.

The South African state has gone to great lengths to blame the parlous state of its relationship with Washington on third parties. First it was the Democratic Alliance (DA). Cyril Ramaphosa even fired a DA deputy minister for what the state alleged was an unsanctioned visit to Washington. Then the DA’s Emma Powell was the subject of a fake news information operation, based on an intelligence report shared with “tame” journalists, that alleged that she had gone to Washington to lobby against South Africa’s economic interests. Now the security services have done the same with regard to various Afrikaner delegations that have visited Washington.

Here are some hard truths.

As in the case of the DA, the Afrikaner delegations lobbied very hard against tariffs imposed by the United States (US) on South Africa, in favour of retaining the preferential trade status South Africa had enjoyed with the US, and beyond that in support of a much-expanded new trade and investment pact between the two countries.

Success

They did this because they live in South Africa and want the country to be a success. The most prominent of all the Afrikaner groups is the Solidarity trade union. Tariffs and restricted trade with the US directly affect its members. In addition, the broader Solidarity movement, of which AfriForum forms an important part, is privately concerned at the Trump refugee offer to Afrikaners given that both Solidarity and AfriForum want to secure a stable future for Afrikaners within the country. They strongly oppose the idea that Afrikaners should exit the country.

However, the letter signed by the Afrikaner Trump critics alleged exactly the opposite: that the Afrikaners in Washington had punted “the great replacement theory” (an idea that whites are being driven to extinction) and the related idea of a “white genocide.” None of the Afrikaner delegations did anything of the sort.

South Africa remains in the minority of serious countries that sit at the top end of US tariff rates. Its trade negotiators in Washington have made a great theatrical performance of trying to get the tariff rates down while in practice stalling, delaying, and obfuscating at every turn. Their principals in Pretoria show no interest in addressing the real substantive US concerns about South Africa’s investment climate whilst continuing to press every button that worries the US about South Africa, from fronting for Iran to pressing for an alternative global reserve currency.

As for the South African state’s purported commitment to finding common ground with America, there has not been a serious South African ambassador in Washington for a decade. The envoy chosen by the South African government to lead its talks with America, given the absence of an ambassador, was not welcome in Washington because of his close ties to Iran. A candidate now under consideration is again not held in esteem in Washington. The embassy staff that are in America are wildly incompetent (the spy who crafted the letter operation, and who had long been based in Washington, where it was widely known she was a spy, was outed within a week, when her WhatsApp messages leaked!).

Tariff

Beyond the simple question of a tariff deal that might easily have been resolved six months ago, the prospect of a much greater new trade and investment pact that the US is very interested in, and that the Afrikaner delegations have lobbied for, is firmly opposed in Pretoria for the reason that it would allow US firms control over aspects of South Africa’s economy and infrastructure. A growing suspicion is that corrupt government leaders in Pretoria may even be acting under external Iranian, Russian, and Chinese influence to deny America access to South Africa’s economy.

Given the delay in striking even a tariff deal, Pretoria is under pressure and so it is manufacturing excuses to explain away what has been a deliberate failure by its government to act in the national interest of South Africa’s people. Part of that strategy, the State Security Agency has decided, is to stigmatise the DA and Afrikaners as the cause of all South Africa’s troubles in Washington. Quite the opposite is true.