In an exclusive interview with Gabriel Makin for The Common Sense, US Ambassador to South Africa Leo Brent Bozell III expressed considerable admiration for South Africa, its history, and the opportunities available to it, as well as touching on the history and values of the US and the state of bilateral relations between the two countries.

He argued that the country’s future could be much brighter than its present economic circumstances suggested, provided its government was prepared to reconsider policies that had held back investment, growth, and employment creation. Bozell said the same principles of individual liberty, economic freedom, and private enterprise that had underpinned America’s rise to become the world’s leading economic power could work in South Africa, and that there was no fundamental reason South Africans should not aspire to the same levels of success.

For Bozell, the lesson of American history was that countries did not need to begin with extraordinary advantages to become prosperous. South Africa, he suggested, already possessed many of the foundations necessary for success. What remained was to create the conditions in which its people could make full use of them.