By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa wants to reach a broad-ranging agreement with the US on diplomacy and trade amid strained ties between the two nations.
Ramaphosa was participating in the Goldman Sachs 2025 South Africa Conference at the Four Seasons Westcliff Hotel in Johannesburg.
The dialogue session was moderated by Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Richard Gnodde.
Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals.
Ramaphosa told a conference that he wanted the “dust to settle” after the executive order but that the longer-term goal was to go to Washington to mend relations.
“We don’t want to go and explain ourselves. We want to go and do a meaningful deal with the United States on a whole range of issues,” Ramaphosa said. “I’m very positively inclined to promoting a good relationship with president Donald Trump.”
Ramaphosa did not say what the deal could involve, only that it could touch on trade, diplomatic and political matters.
The country tries to project itself as non-aligned in geopolitical conflicts, not tying its interests too closely to those of rival powers the United States, China and Russia.
But Trump has cited the ICJ case as an example of South Africa taking positions against Washington and its allies.
Ramaphosa has also described ongoing discussions to reach consensus over the national budget as healthy.
He said it has been another learning curve for the African National Congress (ANC) to have to consider the views of nine other political parties in drawing up a national budget.
Cabinet held a special meeting on Monday to iron out political parties’ budget differences, as they work towards a 12 March deadline to table a reworked version.
Ramaphosa doesn’t believe the sticking points are insurmountable.
“Our differences are not fatal. There are governments that have fallen and broken apart over budgets. It shows we are a maturing democracy, where our differences are not fatal.”
Reaching consensus and striking the balance, he said, will come down to trade-offs, given that revenue is too low to fund the state’s expenditure.
“You’ve got to do deals, you’ve got to trade-offs and say what’s important now and what can be done later, and grow the economy.”
Ramaphosa said although ideological differences among GNU parties have been stark, they have so far, been able to navigate through them rather smoothly.