JOHANNESBURG: Heated exchanges between South Africa and the United States this week are an eruption of tensions over several policy issues that have come into focus under President Donald Trump’s administration, according to analysts.

And more turbulence is in store, with South African-born billionaire Elon Musk a key ally of the new president, they said.

Even if the recent outburst seemed surprising, “the trigger goes some time back”, said Dawie Roodt, chief economist at the Efficient Group consultancy firm.

Senators in the previous US administration “were already questioning their relationship with South Africa”, he said.

For instance, in 2023 a bipartisan group of lawmakers called for former president Joe Biden to punish South Africa for not condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“All of a sudden, those voices that were minority are now more important,” said Roodt.

Trump started the latest spat by accusing South Africa of “confiscating” land and treating “certain classes” of people badly, a likely reference to an expropriation act criticised by white farmers.

The government rejected the claim as misinformed.

Musk followed by charging that President Cyril Ramaphosa had “openly racist ownership laws”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio then weighed in, saying he would not attend a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg this month because South Africa — this year’s president of the forum of top economies — had an “anti-American agenda”.

America’s biggest trading partner in Africa has also come under fire from Washington for leading a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocidal acts in its Gaza offensive.

Pretoria has also shown its loyalty to Beijing, over Washington’s preference for Taipei, by issuing a March deadline for Taiwan’s de facto embassy to move out of the capital.

Trump has meanwhile threatened to place 100 per cent tariffs on Brics nations, of which South Africa is one, to dissuade them from replacing the US dollar with a rival currency.

“The Elon factor is huge,” political scientist Sandile Swana said of the world’s richest man, who left South Africa in the late 1980s when he was aged 17 and is now in Trump’s government.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2025