South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Thursday that the country aims to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with the new US administration, focusing on diplomatic, trade, and other critical matters.
This move comes after a wave of harsh criticism from former US President Donald Trump.
Ramaphosa revealed that Pretoria plans to send a delegation to Washington to address several key issues.
Speaking at a G20 event in South Africa, which was notably absent of the US foreign and finance ministers, he emphasized that the goal was not to explain South Africa’s actions but to secure a “meaningful deal” with the US across a broad range of topics.
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The tensions stemmed from Trump’s criticism earlier this month, accusing South Africa of “confiscating” land from white farmers, a reference to a new law signed by Ramaphosa that allows for “nil compensation” in cases where land is expropriated for public interest.
The law is part of efforts to address historical land ownership imbalances, with the white minority still owning the majority of farmland nearly three decades after apartheid ended.
While Ramaphosa described an early positive conversation with Trump after his January inauguration, he noted that relations had “seemed to go a little bit off the rails.”
This shift in diplomatic ties was underscored when US secretaries of state and finance chose to skip the G20 meetings in South Africa.
Given that the United States is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner and is set to assume the G20 presidency next year, Ramaphosa stressed the urgency of striking a deal on trade, diplomatic, and political fronts. “We must make a deal,” he said, highlighting that a resolution on various issues was inevitable.
