The Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Johannesburg will be a historic gathering. The first time an African country holds the group presidency, the summit takes place during a period of significant strain on multilateral institutions.
It also coincides with the lowest point in the US-South Africa relationship since 1994. US President Donald Trump — along with all other US senior government officials — are likely skipping the meeting. It will mark the only instance of a sitting US president failing to attend since the summit format began in 2008.
Trump’s absence speaks volumes about the poor state of relations between the United States and South Africa. Deep and genuine differences have emerged between the two countries in recent years, and ties have worsened amid Trump’s claims of “white genocide”. Improving the bilateral situation will be difficult, but both sides have good reasons to try.
For Washington, South Africa is one of a small handful of “global swing states” – multialigned countries that play a dominant role in their regions and whose actions have global resonance. Like other global swing states, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, South Africa maintains simultaneous ties with the United States, Russia and China and declines to side fully with just one of the great powers.
In the contest for the future of global order, South Africa’s choices will have a disproportionate impact on the outcome.
In this light, the deteriorating bilateral relationship is disappointing. It is not, however, wholly unsurprising. Long before Trump’s return to office in January, Pretoria’s longstanding policy of nonalignment was widely perceived in Washington as selective moralism.
While failing to condemn China’s human rights abuses against its Uyghur population, South Africa filed genocide charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice over its military operations in Gaza.
Despite positioning itself as firmly anti-imperialist, South Africa repeatedly abstained from United Nations votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the US ambassador in Pretoria accused South Africa of aiding Russia’s war effort by allowing the Lady R, a Russian vessel under US sanctions, to collect weapons at a South African naval base.
The US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act, a Bill introduced last year in the US House of Representatives, would require the president to determine if South Africa has undermined US national security or foreign policy interests.
Bilateral ties were, therefore, not good when Trump re-entered the Oval Office. They have grown markedly worse since. The president’s allegations that South Africa is committing genocide against white farmers – a claim rejected by most observers – and his decision to create a special refugee programme for Afrikaners (while suspending refugee resettlement from other regions) have produced increasing frustration in Pretoria.
South Africa’s ambassador to the United States was expelled in March after charging that the Trump administration is driven by “white supremacism”, and Trump confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa in a contentious Oval Office meeting. South Africa, which previously benefited from tariff-free access to the US market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), now faces the highest rate of tariffs – 30% – in sub-Saharan Africa.
Even with determined effort, the bilateral relationship is unlikely to recover fully any time soon. It remains, however, worse than it must be or should be. Even a modest improvement would yield benefits for both sides.
Washington should develop a critical minerals partnership with South Africa in order to diversify its sources of supply beyond China. Given the expiry of Agoa in September, the two countries should work to establish a more reciprocal, bilateral trade deal that lowers existing barriers and enshrines sustainable, binding commitments.
South Africa should also be included in the Lobito Corridor, a G7-led infrastructure project that is meant to increase trade and economic development in the region by facilitating access to critical minerals and other goods.
The governments should consider revitalising the US-South Africa Bilateral Commission, a set of biannual, high-level conversations to privately review and discuss the strategic relationship.
Such relatively modest steps will remain difficult, but they would represent a start in arresting the downward slide in ties between the two countries. Despite Trump’s absence, the G20 summit should be used as an opportunity to begin along that path. DM