National sovereignty is a two-way street, as President Cyril Ramaphosa and many public officials don’t seem to understand in their arrogant and bullish defence against Trump’s condemnation of the South African government.
In the State of the Nation Address (SONA), Ramaphosa stated that South Africa “will not be bullied,” and must stand united “in defence of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy.”
Yet, in practice Ramaphosa’s government doesn’t care about any of these things. I doubt it even understands what South Africa’s true national interest is. National interest is not siding with terrorists or threatening multi-billion-rand trade deals. It is certainly not in the interest of any South African for our property rights to be eroded and our agricultural sector gutted by fear, both rational and irrational.
And seizing private property is not in line with constitutional democracy. The fact that so many members of the ANC want to amend the Constitution to fit their toxic worldview shows that there is no love for constitutionalism in Ramaphosa’s party.
But most pertinent to South Africa’s recent spat with the United States is the issue of sovereignty. For those confused, national sovereignty refers to a government having the power to control its people and territory. Russia, for instance, doesn’t recognise the sovereignty of Ukraine, as it seeks to seize territory from it.
That is a violation of sovereignty – one that the South African government has helped enable through allowing Russian military exercises in our territory, while aiding the Russian diplomatic smokescreen by refusing to condemn the invasion.
The United States has not violated South African sovereignty. Foreign aid being sent from the US to South Africa is a choice that the US gets to make. It is allowed to set conditions. And it is allowed to stop sending aid whenever it wants. That is its sovereign right.
If we want aid, we must comply with conditions. That isn’t violating our sovereignty. It’s simply making a deal. The same goes for trade. The US is allowed to set conditions if it wants to trade with us or give us preferential treatment as a part of the multi-billion-rand AGOA trade agreement.
If we want to benefit from US aid and trade, we must have sovereign control over our local policy to fit the conditions they set.
South Africa has only our government to blame, now that foreign aid has ended. Analysts like me have spent years warning the government that the US will not tolerate South Africa’s blatant disregard for US interests. And while South Africa has a sovereign right to make bad decisions, it is not a violation of our sovereignty that we now must face the consequences.
Not only was South Africa’s anti-Israel stance built on misinformation and an irrational hatred of Israel and the West, as well as very likely being financially incentivised to take the genocide case to the ICJ by backroom bribes. It was a foolish diplomatic move that pushed us further away from profitable trade partners and into the arms of tyrannical states that definitely do not respect our sovereignty.
South Africa’s true national interest is the peace, safety and prosperity of its citizens. Foolishly aligning itself with warmongers like Russia, neocolonial authoritarians like China, and the terrorists in Hamas and Iran does not aid in promoting our national interest.
We should have prioritised trade and good relations with the US and the West. We run a profitable trade surplus with the US that produces tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs. On the other hand, our trade with BRICS is unprofitable, and sees us becoming a vassal of China, Russia and Iran, and a dumping ground for their goods.
At the end of the day, the United States has done nothing to violate our sovereignty. It is exercising its right to spend money the way it sees fit. It was our responsibility to earn US approval if we wanted to benefit from US wealth. And we failed.
But it’s not too late. We can’t control what other countries do. But we can control what we do. If South Africa maturely backpedals on Expropriation Without Compensation, stops supporting the misinformed idea that Israel is committing a genocide, backs Ukraine and signals that we care about human rights and reasonable policy, then Mr Trump may reverse his executive order – and we will be saved an economic fallout that would push millions into destitution.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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