Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has strained relations between the United States and South Africa almost to the breaking point. Though ostensibly nonaligned, South Africa has maintained strong diplomatic ties with Russia, and its relations with China are similarly robust, as evidenced by the last BRICS summit hosted in Johannesburg in August 2023. While its economy faces increasing troubles, the country remains a political and economic powerhouse on the African continent. As the United States revamps its Africa strategy, should South Africa’s importance in the global order and as one of Africa’s leading economies outweigh its sharp geopolitical differences with Washington? Or should the United States drastically reevaluate its relations with South Africa?
Please join the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program, Christopher S. Chivvis, for the next installment of the Pivotal States series and a discussion of Washington’s strategic alternatives in its relations with South Africa with Michelle Gavin and Zainab Usman.
For past episodes from our series, click here.
Event Transcript
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Chris Chivvis:
Good afternoon from Washington D.C. I’m Chris Chivvis, the Director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Program on American Statecraft, and we’re here for the next installment of Pivotal States in which we examine America’s interests and strategic options in its most important bilateral relationships around the world.
Today we’re talking about South Africa, a democracy that’s one of Africa’s most politically powerful nations and Africa’s second-largest economy after Nigeria. South Africa is widely viewed as a natural leader on the African continent. It’s also a key voice in the Global South. It plays a leading role in the African Union, and it’s a member of the BRICS grouping, which also includes Brazil, Russia, India and China.
South Africa’s relations with the United States have never been smooth. Washington was slow to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime, and for many years designated the African National Congress a terrorist organization. The ANC, as it’s referred to now, has now led South Africa since 1994. Although there have been periods of positive cooperation between Washington and Pretoria in some areas, ties have been especially strained since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year. Pretoria has officially been neutral on the war, but its decision to go ahead with joint naval exercises with Russia and China around the war’s first anniversary was widely criticized in Washington. Things got even worse this May when the US ambassador in Pretoria accused South Africa of supplying weapons to Russia’s war effort. Now, South Africa has firmly denied this allegation, but pressure to punish it for its ties to Russia and China remains.
In recent weeks, Republican and Democrat senators questioned whether South Africa should still be allowed to participate in a long-standing US-Africa trade and investment agreement known as AGOA. So how much should the United States care about South Africa’s warm relations with Russia and China? How much attention should South Africa get from the United States overall in its foreign policy? What should the key elements of a smart US foreign policy strategy for South Africa be?
Now with me today to tackle these questions are two excellent experts on Africa. We have Ambassador Michelle Gavin, who is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2011 to 2014, she was the US Ambassador to Botswana and served concurrently as the US Representative to the Southern African Development Community. I’m also delighted to have my colleague Dr. Zainab Usman, who leads the Carnegie Endowment’s Africa program and has deep expertise in Africa’s institutions and economic and energy policy. Thank you both for being here.
Michelle Gavin:
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Good to be here, Chris.
Chris Chivvis:
So obviously as I just noted, some people are frustrated with US relations with South Africa and questioning whether or not our interests are truly aligned. I want to start by asking you why the United States ought to invest in this relationship in the first place. What are US relations with South Africa when it comes to South Africa? Michelle, maybe I could start with you.
Michelle Gavin:
Sure. Well, I think you laid some of it out at the top. South Africa is an important African economy, in fact the US-South Africa trade and investment relationship is quite robust, over 600 US companies operate in South Africa. In all candor, I think that the framing we often hear in the US of South Africa as gateway to the continent is an overstatement, but I do not deny the importance of the commercial relationship, the economic relationship.
But more importantly, the US needs to care about South Africa because South Africa has an outsized voice on the international stage, and for many speaks with a certain kind of moral authority because of the extraordinary struggle against apartheid and the sacrifices that so many South Africans made to have a more just society. So when they speak, many, many people listen and that’s important.
The other piece, and where I think the US kind of has a natural affinity and interest, is the US cares about examples of successful multiracial democracies. That’s important to us. Our theory of the case around governance depends on very diverse societies being able to succeed and provide socioeconomic opportunity and political space for everyone. And so in that sense, the US cares deeply about South Africa’s success.
Chris Chivvis:
That’s really interesting. Let me just ask you on the question of South Africa’s moral authority, you’re referring to within Africa itself or more broadly?
Michelle Gavin:
I would say more broadly, and there are few figures in recent world history who command the kind of global respect that a free South Africa’s first President Nelson Mandela did, right? While South Africa’s a real place on earth with flaws just like the United States and every other country, it does have an air of moral authority about it, and I think this is one reason, frankly, that we’re so often disappointed in South Africa and in its unwillingness to speak out about abuses of civil and political rights in neighboring states or its seeming affinity for major authoritarian powers, because there is this moral authority dimension to the role South Africa plays internationally.
Chris Chivvis:
Because our expectations of it are very high?
Michelle Gavin:
Yes, and because there’s just a kind of schizophrenia in the South African state and foreign policy where part of it is about upholding this legacy and reference to its extraordinary constitution and then part of it is more transactional and very much bound by a set of relationships and affinities that developed during the struggle and are still very resonant for particularly politically elite South Africans today.
Chris Chivvis:
Really interesting. There’s a lot there to talk about. But Zainab, I want to turn to you and sort of ask you, I mean, why should the United States invest in this relationship in the first place? You’ve had the ability to look at this both from the African side in great depth, but also from the Washington perspective here at the Carnegie Endowment.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Sure. Thanks again for having me, and I think Michelle has already addressed most parts of that question, so I’ll only add to what she has already said. Maybe three or four key points I want to make here.
South Africa is the continent’s second-largest economy, but it’s actually perhaps one of the continent’s most industrialized economies, especially if you take out the North African countries of Egypt and Morocco, South Africa is very much high up the ranking. And indeed it is also a very vibrant democracy. So any effort by the United States, whether the executive or even Congress, to make headway in Africa with respect to economic and commercial relationships, South Africa would have to be involved. There’s no bypassing South Africa in any shape or form. In a sense, it’s also perhaps a gateway to other countries in Southern Africa with the Southern Africa Development Corporation, we think about countries like Lesotho or Eswatini, Botswana, even Zimbabwe, the relationship between the United States and Zimbabwe is very rocky to say the least, and South Africa is usually a very important actor in kind of mediating that relationship.
Another point is that, again, this is something Michelle has already alluded to and mentioned, South Africa does play an important leadership role on the continent, within the continent, within Africa. I mean, it’s not the only leader in Africa, but it is a very important one. And part of the reason is that it has challenges, but it does have significant bureaucratic and administrative capacity that many other African countries just don’t have. Even whether it’s with respect to diplomatic representation at the various embassies around the world, the various delegations and missions represented in South Africa on the African continent in multilateral organizations, the WTO in particular where South Africa is actually uniquely active and engaged. So that really gives it a very, very important leadership role to speak for Africa where other countries that could be able to also exercise that leadership role perhaps lag a bit. So therefore, I think, again, when looking at South Africa from the perspective of the United States trying to engage with the leadership of Africa, South Africa has to be involved in those kinds of dialogues and discussions.
A third reason I would mention is when we look even beyond Africa to talk about the Global South, now that the concept of the Global South is kind of resurgent and re-emerging given the fact that our global economy and our world is fragmenting in a sense, South Africa is a leading voice among Global South countries. I mentioned the WTO and the WTO in particular, and I’m also curious to understand why, maybe it’s just because they’re very organized and the diplomatic representation there is very strong, South Africa tends work very closely with India on a number of issues around a fair and equitable global trading system. I think about most recently with respect to COVID-19 vaccines, the equity of having vaccine access, discussions around waiver, around trade-related intellectual property. I forget what the S is, the TRIPS waiver that Global South countries were advocating for. South Africa was a leading voice in terms of that advocacy. So any efforts to engage with the global south through various fora, G7, the BRICS even, South Africa is actually very, very active on that front.
Chris Chivvis:
Let me ask you, Zainab-
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Go ahead.
Chris Chivvis:
With regard to the Global South, is it that South Africa can help the United States in its relations with the Global South or is it more that the United States doesn’t have any alternative but to work with South Africa? I mean, what is the importance of South Africa in helping the United States with the challenges that it faces in its relations with other countries in the Global South?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
So I would say that it’s a bit of both. It’s the fact that South Africa just has been engaged in Global South issues and topics and groupings and fora for a very long time. So it has the networks, the clout to be able to kind of mediate certain kinds of dialogues between the west and the Global South, so to speak. And of course on several issues or topics, it makes it very clear that it takes a very neutral non-aligned approach, even with the Russia-Ukraine war, I think the official position of the South African government is that they are neutral. Now, of course, certain events have made a lot of observers question whether that neutrality is actually the case, but that is the official position. So for that reason, there’s that respect, credibility and legitimacy that South Africa has.
But I think the other part of your question, whether maybe the United States has really very little alternatives then to engage with South Africa, I think it’s also partly true in the sense that when you look at even an initiative like the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which you mentioned in your framing remarks, there are individuals and actors here in the United States that would want to see South Africa suspended from AGOA as kind of a statement of displeasure at the close relations with Russia. I think there are also many other people who recognize that that could end up having very important consequences for the United States for its relationship with Africa and with other countries. At the end of the day, one of the key beneficiaries of AGOA is South Africa. It’s one of the star performers. A lot of other African countries haven’t done well, haven’t really utilized those privileges. So if you take out South Africa, we’ve already taken out Ethiopia, which is another star performer, we don’t have a lot of countries left.
And then this messaging from the United States, of course the Biden administration specifically, but more broadly that the US wants to have stronger economic and commercial engagement with Africa might start to ring hollow for that reason. So I think there’s also that aspect that in effect South Africa, there’s just no going around it, there will have to be some kind of engagement with that country just because it’s so important and it carries such weight.
Chris Chivvis:
I want to get to the question of how much the United States should care about South Africa’s relationship with Russia and China. But Michelle, let me go to you on this question of the Global South which you also raised, you spoke about South Africa’s moral authority. Is this something that is useful to the United States in some way or, again, is it just something that the United States needs to be cognizant of?
Michelle Gavin:
I mean, I think where our interests align, it could be useful, but I don’t think anyone sane is sort of trying to craft US policy imagining that South Africa’s going to sort of smooth the way for us. As you rightly indicated at the start, this is not an easy relationship, and it never has been it. But I do think an awareness of the role that South Africa plays, and that South Africa guards quite jealously, it’s not as if this isn’t an important kind of strategic imperative for them, it’s to retain this powerful voice on the global stage. This is, I think, extremely important to South Africa. It’s a reason why they were so pleased to host the BRICS Summit this past summer and to frame that up as an opportunity for the rest of Africa and even beyond in the BRICS expansion initiative. So as South Africa, which has a lot of internal economic and political struggles, looks to be influential internationally, this is extremely important to them. But South Africa’s quest to be influential internationally could cut either way for the US depending on whether or not we’re aligned.
Chris Chivvis:
Right. No, that’s great. So thank you for joining us today, this is Pivotal States. I’m Chris Chivvis, the Director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Program on American Statecraft, and we’re here talking about South Africa with Ambassador Michelle Gavin and Dr. Zainab Usman.
I want to turn more directly to the question of how much the United States ought to care about South Africa’s close relationship with Russia and China, or at least what is perceived here in Washington to be a close relationship with Russia and China. What level of priority should policymakers in Washington be placing on this? Michelle, let me start with you.
Michelle Gavin:
Well, I think it’s important at the outset to acknowledge that it’s not new, right? A close South African relationship with Russia and China is certainly not new and it’s not ever going to not exist, and it’s not a US policy imperative that it not. The US really isn’t interested in running around the world telling other governments who they can and can’t talk to. Where the kind of rubber meets the road in terms of US interests is what is the content of relationship and cooperation. So in the case of Russia, if in fact South Africa was providing weapons to Russia while the Russian invasion of Ukraine is ongoing, that doesn’t look like non-alignment to the US, and that’s a position inimical to our interests, right? If there’s money laundering going on through South Africa that helps certain actors to evade sanctions, that’s a concern, right? So it’s really about the substance of the relationship.
And then there is the rhetoric where sometimes this advocacy for the Global South takes the form of an attack on the status quo, which clearly is not working for much of the world, right? And a lot of the international institutions we use today were created before most African states had a seat at the table or had achieved independence, and so reform is needed. But sometimes the language around the US sort of appears to equate the United States with the forces of injustice, and that’s a problem and a problem particularly I think for this administration that’s sort of set out to try to shore up multilateral support for rules-based international order, acknowledging those rules have to be reformed. But if we are cast as the villain in the story, that’s going to be a lot harder to do.
Chris Chivvis:
That’s really interesting. Zainab, let me turn to you. I mean, I’m interested in your views on what level of priority Washington ought to be placing on South Africa’s relationship with Russia and China, but I’m also interested in your views and your interpretation of how those relationships with Russia and China look from South Africa’s perspective.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Yeah, so let me try to address the two questions with one set of statements, which is that I think it’s essential to separate aspects of South Africa’s foreign policy relations that are really independent of the United States and then those that are associated or related to the United States, which could be interpreted in different ways, whether undermining or questioning the current rules-based order or other such interpretations.
So the aspects that are independent of the United States, we can think of the historical legacies here with respect to Russia in particular, which relate to the Soviet Union’s support for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid rule. And those relations have been quite strong. As you know, there are still members of the ANC who were trained by the Soviets, so this is really a relationship that is not going to evaporate in smoke in one day.
Chris Chivvis:
But maybe it has less to do with Washington than we think it does? In other words, it’s not about you?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
It’s really less to do with Washington, it’s just those ties are there. There are people you talk to, they’ll talk about their fond memory studying in St. Petersburg or Moscow. They have ties, they have relationships. I think same thing with China to a large extent. Again, there’s a history there of China engaging with South Africa, again independent of the United States.
The other aspect of the foreign policy that, again, is really perhaps not entirely informed by trying to maybe undermine or stick it up to the United States is the economic and commercial dimension of the relationship, particularly as it relates to China. So China is South Africa’s largest trade partner, and in turn, South Africa is China’s largest street partner on the African continent. In fact, what is very interesting is I think one of the reasons why the trade volumes between South Africa and China are very high is that there are countries in southern Africa and also in East Africa that actually use ports, South African ports to export their commodities. I think about the Democratic Republic of Congo and a few others, right? So South Africa is such an important hub for trade and economic activity between China and indeed other countries in the sub-region. Again, this is entirely independent of the United States.
Then also investment financing, and in fact, the last BRICS summit, there was a round table convened by the Chinese with South Africa and a number of other African countries where countries were requesting for China to provide more support for African industrialization. Again, during that discussion, I’m not sure the United States came up.
But having said that, there are also aspects of South Africa’s foreign policy relations that you can start to see where South Africa is perhaps questioning or is part of initiatives that are trying to come up with they would say a fair, just and equitable system of global governance, right? Advocacies around expansion and reform of the UN Security Council, advocacies around reform of the multilateral financial institutions, particularly the Bretton Woods entities, the World Bank and the IMF, we mentioned the World Trade Organization earlier on. These are all institutions of global economic governance that are in a sense guaranteed by the United States. So you can see how one could interpret that any kind of advocacy to reform this global system of global governance might be seen as an attack on a system that is guaranteed by the United States.
Then of course, with respect to the war in Ukraine, perhaps that is a bit more direct in the sense that South Africa has decidedly remained neutral, which is kind of maybe at best a benign interpretation of the position South Africa has taken with respect to Russia.
I think one other thing I would just mention very briefly, just because it is a very dynamic and evolving situation, is right now the war between Israel and Hamas with the Palestinians, it’s also very interesting that South Africa has been very, very consistent, in fact unlike other African countries, in making it very clear where it stands because it interprets the situation in Israel, the situation in Palestine through the lens of its own history and experience with apartheid rule. So again, it’s another perhaps area where you could say that South Africa’s foreign policy position seems to be perhaps in direct contrast or direct contradiction to the position that the United States might otherwise take.
Chris Chivvis:
Do you see any signs that the US-South Africa relationship is going to suffer or has been suffering as a consequence of the strategy that the Biden administration has pursued to this war? Or can it be compartmentalized?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
I think with respect to this particular war, it is still… I mean, which war are we talking about? Because there are quite a number.
Chris Chivvis:
I’m talking about Israel/Hamas war.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Okay. I think it’s still early days to be honest. But again, and I think I’m kind of echoing something Michelle said, a lot of these things are not new with South Africa. This is not a new position it has taken with respect to Israel and Palestine and the Palestinians. In fact, the last time, just a couple of months ago when Naledi Pandor was in DC, she did a fireside chat at the Council on Foreign Relations, and this issue actually came up and she used that to explain why they’re taking a neutral position on the war in Ukraine. She says there’s also a situation in the Middle East, but it doesn’t seem as if the positions are very consistent. So for us, we’re trying to be consistent. That’s kind of what she said, you could interpret that in different ways. So I think just to kind of round up this point, I think it’s still early days, but these are not new issues and this is not a new position that South Africa has taken.
Chris Chivvis:
Michelle, what do you think? I mean, specifically on the Israel/Hamas war, is this something that is likely to damage US-South Africa relations, or can it be compartmentalized?
Michelle Gavin:
I think that Zainab’s absolutely right that no US policymaker would be surprised by South African support and solidarity with the Palestinian people. This is a long-held position, and it’s held through much of the region. I think it remains to be seen how South Africa might express its concerns about the US and US military support for Israel, right? So how is that framed? What is it linked to? That will, I think, help to determine how manageable these different perspectives are. But it’s certainly not shocking that the conflict looks different or perhaps different elements of it are emphasized more in different places, and the US and the rest of the world are not always going to see eye to eye on this issue clearly.
It’s also interesting though that South Africa as a diverse democracy has its own internal debate about its policies and positions, and it’s not just external parties who were concerned about Naledi Pandor taking a call from Hamas just a few days after the deadly terrorist attacks. But internally within South Africa, there are people voicing concern, and so that’s actually a very familiar dynamic, I think, to Americans where we see plenty of internal dissents about our own policies.
But I just want to pull one thread because it’s such a great point that Zainab made about consistency and that South Africans see inconsistencies in US policy, which I think many people see, sometimes different inconsistencies, but this is a very familiar refrain and a challenge for US foreign policy, particularly where you’re trying to advance interests and values and sometimes those things come into conflict. Similarly, I think this is at the heart of some of our frustration with South Africa is their own set of inconsistencies where they’re identifying with the oppressed is how I think the framing of their support for the Palestinian people, but then in a case like Zimbabwe where you do have severe restrictions on civil and political rights and you have political violence, state-perpetrated political violence, they’re less likely to identify with the oppressed and more likely to identify with a ruling party that was also a party of liberation.
So these inconsistencies that we see in each other’s policies, I think also kind of helped to drive what I think is the most fundamentally dangerous element of where the bilateral relationship is at right now, which is mistrust and real suspicions about each other’s motives and intentions. We will always have disagreements, that’s the place where I think things could really go off the rails if we get a set of policy makers convinced that the other is truly seeking to undermine core interests of the state.
Chris Chivvis:
That’s fascinating. This is Pivotal States with the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment. I’m Chris Chivvis and I’m here talking about South Africa with Ambassador Michelle Gavin and Dr. Zainab Usman. We welcome your questions online. Please go ahead and submit them. We’ve already had a few come. In a few minutes I’ll be turning to try to offer some of those questions to our expert guests here.
Before we do that, I want to turn back to the question of what level of priority the United States ought to be placing on South Africa’s relationship with China and Russia. Michelle, should this be a high priority in the relationship or do you think it would be better if Washington were to place lower priority on it?
Michelle Gavin:
I don’t think that the very fact of these relationships should be a priority at all for the US. Of course, South Africa has ongoing and multifaceted relations with these states, it’s really about the specific content and I think it’s about being able to define with clarity where important interests of ours are affected and where they are not.
Chris Chivvis:
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Zainab, you’ve been following to some degree the suggestions or the discussion here in Washington about potentially trying to penalize South Africa for its relationship with Russia. How do you see that? What’s driving that and what should we make of it?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
I think I’m also going to agree with Michelle’s broader point that I’m not sure South Africa’s relations with different parts of the world should be informing US policy towards South Africa for the most part. Sure, there’s a war in Ukraine, and that is of course very, very complicated, but also because it’s a conflict that is very much at the heart of the Biden administration’s overall and overarching foreign policy so I can see how that is very, very important. But on that front, I think I would also emphasize on a point we all made earlier about the consistency here because I think it’s really the lens through which a lot of countries beyond South Africa, I mean in Africa, but also in Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia are kind of interpreting certain aspects of US foreign policy at the moment, that there needs to be greater consistency.
But beyond that, also I think the United States just has a lot of tools and instruments and the basis for its own independent engagement and relations with South Africa. And I hear one initiative that really comes to mind is the Just Energy Transition Partnership, which is meant to be an innovation around climate finance that is based on a negotiation between a recipient country, which is typically a middle-income country in the Global South, and advanced economies led by the United States, but also the Europeans. And in fact, this Just Energy Transition Partnership was initiated with South Africa. The first of these deals happened with South Africa and was preceded by elaborate negotiations that happened, which again is a testament to the fact that the US and South Africa, they have their own robust networks of relationships that can be built upon.
I think if the objectives of the JETP are achieved, which is to help South Africa decarbonize and reduce its reliance on coal-powered generation, to enable South Africa to invest in clean energy industries and generate jobs, I think that could be a very important win for the United States because this is such a huge initiative for the Biden administration. Again, this is something that is completely independent of China, so there are things and initiatives like that that can be pursued that hold a lot of promise that really do not have to be reflected or refracted through the lens of great power competition necessarily.
I think with respect to kind of thinking about whether South Africa should or should not be punished, I think that is entirely left to the officials or the individuals that are pushing for those policy solutions. But I think what I would also say is that depending on the issue… I mean, the Lady R incident, I kind of get why that is a very inflammatory issue, so to speak. But I think there are also other areas where given the nature of the global environment, honestly when it comes to engagement with Africa more broadly, South Africa in particular as well, there’s a lot of competition for South Africa’s attention. That is the reality, especially in the economic and commercial space, that I think a more dynamic and elaborate approach is needed to South Africa than just carrots and sticks only. There needs to be a more elaborate package.
Chris Chivvis:
I want to talk about the future of the relationship and from both of you what a positive future for the relationship would look like, but it does sound like you both feel that there is enough space there for the United States to push forward on common interests on things like JETP with South Africa, regardless of the fact that South Africa does have close relations with Russia and China, with the exception of perhaps some limited cases, you might call them, where South Africa, for example, by providing weapons to Russia might cross a line that would prohibit the kind of cooperative relationship that you both seem to favor. Michelle, did I characterize that about right?
Michelle Gavin:
I think that’s about right, yeah. I do think that it’s likely that the space, the overlap in the Venn diagram of interests and values is smaller than Americans had thought it was and smaller than maybe we wish it to be. I think there’s a lot of kind of romanticizing of the relationship, whereas quite rightly Zainab has reminded us of the US history of support for the apartheid regime, and there’s no dancing around that. Americans tend to remember the anti-apartheid movement in this country, this mass mobilization that changed the minds of members of Congress and eventually to the point of overriding a presidential veto to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. This is not the kind of warmth with which for a long time US policymakers have thought about the bilateral relationships. It’s not returned and it’s not how they see it.
And so I do think we might need to be more modest in what we imagine we can do together, and I do think broadly we should listen when South Africa talks about wanting to reform the world hand-in-hand with Russia and China and ask ourselves if we think that’s the kind of just and equitable reform that is what’s necessary. So I don’t want to put on the rose-colored glasses here, but do I think the whole relationship is a lost cause? Absolutely not. And what I want to stress in terms of going forward is that our societies have a tremendous amount to gain and learn from each other. South Africa’s got an incredibly robust civil society that has been engaged lately in thinking about how to effectively combat corruption, how to address systemic inequalities, how to protect democratic institutions. These are things that a lot of Americans are concerned about in our society and we can learn from each other, and there’s a lot of space, I think, in the bilateral relationship aside from the government-to-government piece that is well worth a lot of attention and energy.
Chris Chivvis:
What about its role, we haven’t talked much about this yet, in providing or helping to promote peace and stability within Sub-Saharan Africa itself? Is that a potential area for cooperation?
Michelle Gavin:
It absolutely can be. South Africa has been more inwardly focused in recent years than it had been in the past, but it can, South Africa can play a very important role diplomatically. It still has a capable military force, and I think we’ve seen in the context of northern Mozambique more willingness on the part of southern African states to think collectively about important security threats. So I think that there can be instances where that is absolutely an area of cooperation.
Chris Chivvis:
We have a question from Dwight here about stepping back a little bit to think about South Africa’s potentially strategic position. Zainab, Michelle, do either of you have thoughts about from a strategic perspective, were the US-China competition to over time become more global, do you see that potentially changing South Africa’s relevance in particular as a waypoint between Asia and the Atlantic?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Maybe what I can say to that is we are already seeing signs of how South Africa might position itself where this rivalry and competition between the US and China to kind of escalate to the point of a complete breakdown in the relationship between the two countries. South Africa has made it very clear that it’s taken a non-aligned position. In fact, even with the BRICS summit that concluded in August this year, they were very, very clear, I think there were a couple of speeches by Cyril Ramaphosa, the President, who said BRICS is not meant to be counter to the G7 as it was being framed at the time.
Now of course, China is in BRICS, and if this tension between the US and China were to really escalate, then that is not going to really make a lot of sense to say that BRICS is really neutral. But I think South Africa as a country, its national position is likely to remain non-aligned, and it’s likely to be one of the countries that if there’s any notion of a third way, third way that is independent of China and of the United States, I think South Africa would be an active player in that third way and third approach.
Chris Chivvis:
So beyond learning from each other, if we were to fast-forward say five years or maybe even 10 and think about US-South Africa relations, what would be a good outcome? What would be some of the things that we would look for to say, “Yeah, things have gone fairly well in this relationship?” Michelle, do you have thoughts on that? Are there one or two things that we could hope for today realistically for 10 years from now?
Michelle Gavin:
Sure. A continued deepening of the commercial relationship, particularly in ways that help to create desperately needed jobs in South Africa because the job creation imperative is a huge kind of policy conundrum for the region at large. So if we can make progress in South Africa, which is sometimes kind of a challenging labor market situation, then that would be a big win.
Chris Chivvis:
For both the United States and South Africa?
Michelle Gavin:
Exactly, exactly, yeah. If South Africa, which is really an outlier in the African region in terms of carbon emissions, makes good progress on transitioning away from coal power, this is a big win. If some of the new investments and developments in pharmaceutical production take off in South Africa, this helps make the whole world more secure when we think about infectious disease. So I think there are a number of genuine meaty potential gains that we could look for.
Chris Chivvis:
Zainab, how do you see it? What are the things that you would really hope for realistically that we might be able to build in the bilateral relationship in the next decade?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Great, I think Michelle has already answered that question, but maybe one thing I’ll add is really I would like to see progress on the JETP because I think it’s very, very promising and it gets to the heart of an issue, which is climate change and climate action, that is so central to Africa’s future. So success on that is going to have a cascading impact on other aspects of the US-South Africa relationship, but actually the US-Africa relationship as well. And it’s something, again, that is new, is different, and it’s really not comparable to what China is doing in Africa or Russia is doing in Africa. Success on that will be absolutely crucial.
A second point I would make is, again, I think I’m also just emphasizing on the economic and commercial aspect of the relationship is South Africa needs jobs. Unemployment rate is a third of the labor force is really unemployed. Youth unemployment is much higher, so they need solutions and innovations, and maybe this is an area where the United States can help. And unlike many other African countries, the structure of the South African economy is slightly different. They don’t really have a larger formal sector that is like an informal safety net for unemployed people. So people who are unemployed literally have no other source of income. So there’s a high level of restiveness and unhappiness, and you see that breaking out frequently in riots and other kinds of types of unrest.
Michelle Gavin:
Xenophobia too.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Yes, exactly, xenophobia towards other African migrants. So I think being able to help South Africa find solutions would be a huge win for the United States on that front.
Chris Chivvis:
So is that how you see America’s value proposition to South Africa? This is something that in an era where the United States is more hard-pressed to offer market access, for example, it’s an issue in American foreign policy around the world, the United States wants many things out of countries like South Africa, but sometimes has struggled at least in the last few years to figure out what it’s offering in return. Are those things that you just listed, Zainab, the key things that the United States could offer that would make up an attractive value proposition to Pretoria?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Those things can certainly help, meaning that more effort to connect US investors to opportunities in South Africa. But honestly, and this is my general approach to thinking about US engagement with Africa, there are actually a number of underutilized tools. In some cases, we don’t have to come up with new initiatives or new policy actions, we just need to seriously use what already exists.
Again, I want to think of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA here. I was at the AGOA Forum that just concluded in Johannesburg, and you could see South Africa was very, very engaged and with its leadership, the entire African continent… Well, the sub-Saharan African countries were really able to have a mechanism to engage and provide their input on how they think AGOA could be made to work better. So discussions there were around leveraging AGOA to increase the US-Africa trade and minerals and metals to help attract investments around processing, refining and some manufacturing for minerals and agriculture commodities, what Michelle mentioned earlier around pharmaceuticals. So I think there are already tools that exist. We don’t need to make new announcements, we just need to make the tools that exist work better.
And perhaps one final point then is circling back to the point made earlier around some of the instinctive reaction to perceived infractions from countries like South Africa, which is let’s sanction them or let’s kick them out of existing programs. I can see how that makes sense in terms of trying to take action against a certain kind of infraction but in the long-term, I’m not sure that is in the interest of the United States to take that kind of approach.
Chris Chivvis:
Michelle, how do you see the US value proposition to South Africa?
Michelle Gavin:
Well, I agree that there are a number of tools that certainly have not been exhausted in terms of their potential to deliver gains to both parties. I also think when you look at foreign assistance, we do devote very significant resources in the health sector in South Africa, as we do across much of the region. And the returns on that investment have been very significant in lives saved, particularly I’m thinking of PEPFAR, President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief. But a conversation, this is not as South Africa specific, but it applies to South Africa too, around South African priorities and whether our foreign assistance portfolio is really aligned with them, I think makes a lot of sense. There is a significant investment that the US has made in public health in South Africa that while I think senior members of the government are aware of, it’s not always clear that society is aware.
Chris Chivvis:
The South African government?
Michelle Gavin:
That’s right.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah, no, that’s interesting, that’s interesting. Well, we’ve covered a lot of territory here. I like to ask each of you sort of as a way of wrapping up, if you had five minutes with President Biden, what would be at the top of your list of things to encourage him to do in this relationship? Zainab, let me start with you. What would be the most important thing that you think the United States ought to do when it comes to South Africa?
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Two things. One, as I mentioned, really delivering on JETP. I cannot emphasize enough how crucial that is going to be for how the United States is seen with respect to climate action, not just in South Africa, but in Africa and in fact other parts of the Global South. And I say this because, just as an aside, there was a new item in the Financial Times a couple of days ago in which the Indonesian President Joko Widodo was saying that the JETP for Indonesia, they’re still waiting on the financial commitments. So there’s already skepticism starting to set in. And if this is not managed, it’s really going to have a cascading impact on other aspects of US foreign policy with respect to the Global South. So that’s one thing that I think we shouldn’t drop the ball on it.
The second thing is really, and I don’t know if I have a specific recommendation, is that, I mean, the world today, the global order is really is becoming more fragmented and many countries are really trying to navigate. They don’t know what to do. They are worried about US-China tensions, they have relations with China, they have relations with the United States, and they value both, but they also want to carve out their own independent path. So they’re really trying to navigate things. And perhaps what I would urge is a bit more empathy with those countries. At the end of the day, they’re not as strong and powerful as the United States. There are things that they might do that might seem like they are kind of directly challenging or undermining the United States, whereas in actual fact, they’re just really not sure what to do in this very kind of increasingly turbulent global order. So not quite a recommendation there, but just to say that countries are scared and they’re really trying to navigate a new world.
Chris Chivvis:
Probably a recommendation that goes well beyond South Africa to a lot of the other emerging powers that we see around the world. Michelle, what about you?
Michelle Gavin:
So I’d probably try and make three quick points that no matter how bad things get in the government-to-government bilateral relationship, there’s a lot we can do with South African civil society and it should never be an afterthought.
Two, never to discount the presence of history in every conversation with the South Africans. And President Biden has a lot of experience with this. He’s sitting across from South African counterparts, and there’s always a discussion of the history, and that’s important, right? It shapes how we see the world. And so keeping that in mind, not letting it surprise you, not letting these historical relationships with other external actors get distorted into something new and threatening, that’s important.
And then finally, to just note that we need to move out on addressing the legitimate concerns of many in the Global South around international institutional architecture. If we’re pretty sure that a Russia and China-shaped world is not one we want for our grandchildren, then we need to have real alternatives that address inequities and just dysfunction. So it’s not enough to say, “We hear you,” right? Action is required.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, that’s a fantastic couple of concluding points there. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. This has been Pivotal States with the American Statecraft Program. I’ve been speaking with Ambassador Michelle Gavin, and my colleague here at the Carnegie Endowment, Dr. Zainab Usman. Really, thanks so much for joining us, look forward to continuing this conversation with you both in the future.
Michelle Gavin:
Thanks so much.
Dr. Zainab Usman:
Thank you.
Source link : https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/11/09/pivotal-states-where-does-u.s.-south-africa-strategic-partnership-go-from-here-event-8186
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Publish date : 2023-11-09 08:00:00
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