South Africa Houses of Parliament. [photo: Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg 7+ / Alamy ]
[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Opinions expressed do not reflect the position of the Round Table editorial board.]
In real terms, the GNU has changed little in South Africa: unemployment remains staggeringly high (32% in Q4 2024), although this figure has dropped slightly as investors responded positively to the GNU’s formation.Footnote17 The ‘numerical employment targets’ for the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEAA) show that the ANC is doubling down on BEE. Even though recent polling by IPSOS suggests that only 44% of South Africans believe the GNU should continue BEE policies, 36% believe BEE should be stopped (20% ‘don’t know’).Footnote18 The unfolding drama in the Gauteng division of the High Court highlights this issue, as the DA challenges the constitutionality of the EEAA on the basis that ‘section 15A violates section 9 of the Constitution by enabling discrimination based on race’.Footnote19 This move suggests ‘the DA believes it can push the ANC very far indeed’.Footnote20
The ANC’s determination to remain in charge of policy, even if coalition politics requires a degree of power sharing, has had direct ramifications for South Africa’s relationship with the United States. There are numerous points of contention: South Africa’s determined courting of Iran, support for the Palestinian cause and stern criticism of Israel’s military action in Gaza, ‘leaning to one side’ towards China in the BRICS relationship, as well as BEE policies. All these points of tension preceded Trump’s re-election, but the relationship between Washington and Pretoria has deteriorated significantly since January 2025. Yet the US–SA relationship could be mutually beneficial: SA’s mineral exports were excluded from Trump’s blizzard of tariffs,Footnote21 while South Africa occupies an important place on the global shipping map – particularly given Houthi extortion and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.Footnote22 South African exports to the USA accounted for over 2% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product in 2024.Footnote23 The stuttering South African economy is in no position to absorb the possible shocks of expulsion from the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), and Trump’s punishing 30% tariffs, currently on hold. A great deal hangs on Ramaphosa’s meeting with Trump in Washington on 21 May.
South Africa’s challenges
South Africa’s election leaves the country stirred, not shaken
Before the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting far the GNU has shown few signs of responding to this challenge in any meaningful way. The ANC has appeared determined to continue a markedly, and in some cases avowedly ‘anti-American’, foreign policy.Footnote24 (South Africa’s diplomatic ability to build effective networks with the Trump administration and across Washington has also been hampered by the poor state of the South African foreign service and poor choice of senior diplomatic appointments.Footnote25) In the meantime, according to the South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA (SACCUSA), 67,042 people have expressed interest in taking up Trump’s offer of ‘asylum’ to Afrikaners as ‘victims of unjust racial discrimination’.Footnote26 All this has prompted some analysts to speculate that the Trump Administration is pushing the ANC to choose between possible geopolitical relationships, confident that South Africa would be the loser if the ANC opts to walk away from a collaborative diplomatic and commercial relationship with the United States. This, again, is diametrically at odds with the DA’s preference for foreign policy alignments. The outcome of any meeting between Presidents Trump and Ramaphosa is likely to intensify the symptoms the Scylla and Charybdis faced by the South African president. He risks alienating his own party or losing grip of economic and political realities facing South Africans, as well as his credibility. Either it will provide further evidence of the ANC’s destructive intransigence in the face of new realities or it will reveal a leader who adapts to them- alienating his opponents within the Tripartite alliance, EFF and MK, as a pro-Western anti-revolutionary DA stooge. Both paths threaten the GNU.
For the moment, neither the ANC nor the DA wants to ‘blink first’ and walk out of the GNU. This plays to the ANC’s advantage as it can continue to champion its grassroot policies. However, since the VAT debacle, the signs are that ANC voters are deserting the party, and the DA is carving out a distinct role in opposing the ANC’s policies, demonstrating its strength within the popular coalition government. But a house divided cannot stand, and as winter approaches with its attendant likely loadshedding, it seems only a matter of time before the GNU disintegrates. Will the ANC recalibrate the coalition by drawing in other much smaller parties, such as Build South Africa and ActionSA, and so call the DA’s bluff to leave the coalition? Or does the DA have more to win by staying inside the GNU, and the ANC more to lose?
Edward Polsue is with the Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, South Africa.
