By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has chosen an ambassador to the United States of America (USA) to fill the position that has been empty for more than a year and the announcement is imminent.
South Africa hasn’t had an ambassador to the US since 14 March 2025, when the former ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, was declared persona non grata by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rasool was expelled from the country over his criticism of the Donald Trump administration and its policies.
Zane Dangor, director-general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) told the Cape Town Press Club on Monday, 13 April that the selection process has been completed but the government is not revealing the name of the candidate.
“So there will be an ambassador quite soon, and it will be the kind of person who I think is ideally suited for the environment,” Dangor said.
Dangor added that the new ambassador would be competent in engaging the US on the outstanding issues South Africa still has with Washington. He noted that there were three baskets of such issues: domestic, foreign policy and trade.
“The most important issue unresolved is the domestic basket,” he said, evidently referring to domestic policies that the Trump administration objects to, such as black economic empowerment; expropriation of land without compensation; alleged persecution of white farmers and the Kill the Boer song, which the SA courts have ruled is a legitimate struggle song but which the US – and some South Africans – consider to be hate speech.
He played down the decision by France not to invite Ramaphosa to its G7 summit, which some officials have attributed to pressure to the US. Dangor stressed that SA was not a member of the G7 and did not feel entitled to attend G7 summits.
But Dangor insisted that as a full member of the G20, South Africa was entitled to attend its summits and said that France would raise the US exclusion of SA from its G20 meetings at the next meeting of G20 sherpas.
US relations with South Africa shifted after US President Bill Clinton took office and apartheid ended in 1994. Today, the US has become South Africa’s second-most important trading partner after China.