By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula says the South Africa’s visit to the US was aimed to reset and revitalise bilateral relations between the two countries.
President Cyril Ramaphosa led a delegation of four ministers, some business people, golf players and labour on a working visit to Washington to reset bilateral relations.
Mbalula said Ramaphosa must be commended for defending South Africa’s interests in the face of widely discredited allegations from the Trump administration, which has accused the country of allowing the mass killing of white farmers, a claim South Africa has consistently rejected.
The meeting, held at the White House, comes amid growing tensions between Pretoria and Washington over domestic and foreign policy differences.
According to Mbalula, the engagement represents a turning point in efforts to reopen formal diplomatic communication between the two nations.
“The diplomatic channels, proper channels of engagement, will actually be opened up from yesterday. So, it was a great achievement for South Africa and the president, and his delegation took the right decision, which we as the ANC supported right from the outset,” Mbalula said.
Mbalula also criticised retired golf legend Gary Player, a longtime friend of Trump, accusing him of spreading negative and false narratives about South Africa to the U.S. president. Player did not attend the meeting.
Instead, Ramaphosa was joined by prominent South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen—an intentional move to engage Trump, a known golf enthusiast, and attempt to soften political tensions through shared interests.
Mbalula also commended billionaire businessman Johann Rupert, who was part of the South African delegation, for standing with the president and speaking up to defend the country.
“It was good for the president to bring people who don’t only come from the political fold. We, as South Africans, we could see yesterday that there are people who love this country – patriots, in the best interest of all South Africans, who can stick their neck out and defend the country the way Johann Rupert did yesterday,” Mbalula said.
He emphasised that South Africa has never shied away from responding when misrepresented by powerful nations, and this meeting was no exception.
Back home, most observers praised how Ramaphosa, who was jailed for his opposition to apartheid and helped negotiate an end to White-minority rule, had kept his cool.
“I think President Ramaphosa showed tremendous restraint. He showed what he is globally renowned for — that he can have conversations with people who strongly disagree with him,” said Melanie Verwoerd, an independent political analyst and South Africa’s former ambassador to Ireland.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) — that featured in the video aired by Trump purporting to back his claim of White persecution — said Ramaphosa had been humiliated and hadn’t done nearly enough to push back on the US leader’s falsehoods.
Ramaphosa “abandoned South Africa’s sovereignty and constitutional principles to appease White monopoly capital and Western imperialism,” the party said in a statement. “This is a betrayal of the people’s struggle for land, equality, and true freedom.”
Three decades after the end of White rule — during which Black people were subjugated and excluded from commercial and political life — White families on average earn almost five times as much as their Black counterparts, data from the national statistics agency shows. A 2017 audit found that White people own more than 70% of rural land held by individuals, even though Whites make up around 7% of the population.