The United States of America, the world’s global power, is angry. Interestingly, this time, the US anger is not directed towards its greatest rival, Russia or China. Instead, it is directed towards South Africa. Now, based on what has happened over and over again in the past, we know that once America is angry with a country, it is going to find ways to punish that country. Fellow Africans, this is about to happen again. The American government wants to punish South Africa. The question is “Why? What exactly did South Africa do? It’s simple, South Africa openly stood against the US by dragging Israel, an ally of the US, to court, accusing it of genocide in its current fight with Palestine. If you recall, South Africa was one of the first countries to condemn Israel’s actions after the October 7th Hamas attack in 2023. Not only that, South Africa decided to bring the issue before the International Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the United Nations which has jurisdiction over every country including the USA. In a historic moment, South Africa tabled its case against Israel on January 11th, 2024, stating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Although the court has yet to issue a ruling, it ordered Israel to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide.

The fact is, if the court finds Israel guilty, then the US would also be guilty in terms of complicity because all the destruction wreaked by Israel in its war against Palestine, was made possible by US weaponry. The white phosphorus burning Palestinian bodies, the 2,000-pound “dumb bombs” dropped on densely crowded areas, and the 155 mm artillery shells, which are inherently indiscriminate, are all U.S. products, supplied by the US to Israel. Now, while South Africa was busy celebrating its win, the US decided to retaliate by proposing a bill that has the potential to cause trouble for South Africa in various facets of business, aid, and geopolitics. The bill was proposed recently by Congressmen John James and Jared Moskowitz, who are from the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. This is very significant because the Republican and Democratic parties are opposite of each other. Rarely do they work together. So, for both parties to be in agreement, it means the United States is truly united in going all out against South Africa.

The bill calls for a full review of the bilateral relationship between the US and South Africa. It states that not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, US President Joe Biden in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, shall certify to the appropriate congressional committees and release publicly an unclassified determination explicitly stating whether South Africa has engaged in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests. The bill further accused South Africa of collaborating with Russia, China, and Iran and that South Africa was acting inconsistent with its publicly stated policy of nonalignment in international affairs by continuously siding with Hamas, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The proposed bill accused South Africa of supporting Hamas since 1994 and of “taking a hardline stance of consistently accusing Israel of practicing apartheid”.

The US congressmen who proposed the bill, accused the South African government and ANC leaders of “blaming Israel for provoking the attack” on October 7th and said they had made “a variety of antisemitic and anti-Israel-related statements”. ANC spokesperson, Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, was accused of defending Hamas by saying the attacks were “unsurprising”, while President Cyril Ramaphosa was slammed for accusing Israel of “genocide”. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was not left out of the accusations. She was accused of taking a phone call with Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh just days after the attack and meetings with the government leaders of Iran. So, is the US trying to insinuate that South Africa collaborated with Hamas to attack Israel? Honestly, this is just wrong.

Now, aside from accusing South Africa of collaborating with Hamas, the bill went on to highlight how in recent years, South Africa has deepened its relationship with Russia and China. It cites that South Africa dispatched multiple high-level official delegations to Russia to further political, intelligence, and military cooperation. It also adds that South Africa and the ANC’s relationship with the Chinese government and its ruling Chinese Communist Party(CCP) – which is committing gross violations of human rights in the Xinjiang province and implementing economically coercive tactics around the globe – undermine South Africa’s democratic constitutional system of governance. These acts include what it says are ongoing ANC and CCP inter-party cooperation including the recruitment of former United States and NATO fighter pilots to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army pilots at the Test Flying Academy of South Africa; South AfrICA’s hosting of 6 Chinese government-backed and CCP-linked Confucius Institutes; South Africa’s participation in a political training school in Tanzania funded by the Chinese Communist Party, cooperation with the Chinese global Belt and Road Initiative; and the widespread presence in South Africa’s media and technology sectors of PRC state-linked firms.

Finally, the bill stated that the ANC-led South African Government has a history of substantially mismanaging a range of state resources and has often proven incapable of effectively delivering public services, threatening the South African people and the South African economy. It accuses President Ramaphosa of having declared the national state of disaster over the worsening energy crisis, “the worsening, multi-year power crisis caused by the ANC’s chronic mismanagement of the state-owned power company Eskom, resulting from endemic, high-level corruption”. It also states that the persistence of Transnet’s insufficient capacity, an on-going outbreak of cholera, a failure to provide clean water to households, and rampant state capture are part of the ANC government’s mismanagement of the state. Although the bill still needs to be discussed before it is passed by the congress, there is no doubt that this action by the US is simply retaliation against South Africa for having the guts to stand against its policy. And, it seems the US has been planning this for a while even before the ICJ.

According to an adjunct fellow at the Centre for African Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC, Michael Walsh, the ICJ case provided the policy window that triggered the proposed bill. This means that the United States has secretly been angry with South Africa. The ICJ case just brought the tension to a head. The reason why this is bad for South Africa is because if the comprehensive review and unclassified determination finds that South Africa’s action undermined the US national security or foreign policy interests, South Africa could be kicked out of AGOA, Africa’s Growth opportunity Act. AGOA which is scheduled to expire in September 2025, enables more than 30 African countries to export 1 835 types of goods to the US consumer market, and, in turn, Agoa affords the US access to critical minerals, product value chains and investment opportunities in Africa. And in the whole of Africa, South Africa remains the largest US trade partner. If Sout Africa happens to get kicked out of AGOA, it would make the export of many commodities expensive, leading to further strain in the South African economy.

So, once again, the United Staemtes have proven that any country that doesn’t believe what it believes and does what it does, will have to be punished. But is that even fair and just? For a country that says it believes in equality, fairness and justice, the USA is certainly not acting in this direction. South Africa is a sovereign country so it can support whoever it wishes to support. Just because the USA doesn’t like Russia and China, doesn’t mean South Africa has to follow suit. But it shouldn’t be surprising after all, this is not the first time the USA has retaliated against countries that doesn’t succumb to its will. Countless countries including Russia, China and many African countries have suffered under the hegemonic rule of the USA. Its either the US use sanctions to cripple the economy of the country that dares to be on the other side or it military intervene. Honestly, this attitude of the United States needs to stop or else there will come a day when countries will gather together to stand up against it and that will be the end. Only time will tell how everything will play out for South Africa.

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