At this point in history, and like many other developing countries, we in South Africa are at an ideological crossroads and are divided in terms of what to do going forward. The choices to be made are between remaining a part of the established Western democracies versus re-aligning ourselves with an emerging world order, initially spearheaded by China’s economic rise for the last thirty years. The emergence of this rival political and economic world order has now been made most explicit by the contrasting global reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s war has also amplified the ideological divisions among South Africans and made urgent the complicated discussions and decisions to be made about the country’s political and economic relations with the main global actors. The national divisions also stem right from (and underline the residues of) our own historical struggles for political liberation of the Black population. With the world regressing to Cold War intergovernmental relations, pre-1994 political alliances and divisions are re-emerging at a national level. This means there are many difficult questions to which we must find answers. We need to carefully assess the future implications for our place in the geopolitical order that follow from decisions currently being made in our names. The intergovernmental relations between the US and SA are at centre stage and expose the tricky nature of our political decisions as they relate to our common national identity and the sustainability of our economic wellbeing.
The increasingly strained nature of USA–RSA relations has recently (11th May 2023) been highlighted by the controversial claims made by the US ambassador to South Africa, Mr Brigety. He claimed that South Africa provided Russia with arms to bolster its ongoing invasion of Ukraine using the cargo ship, Lady R, docked in Simon's Town in December 2022. But prior to this claim and following South Africa’s voting stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the UN, along with the joint-military exercises SA took with Russia and China in 2022, the US Congress had already introduced a resolution calling on Biden’s administration to review its relations with SA. The recent controversial claims by Brigety will only put more negative focus on South Africa in the US and beyond. On the other hand, the South African and Chinese governments have maintained their formal claim to being non-aligned in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This claim is proving difficult to sustainably illustrate in light of both China and South Africa being members of the BRICS bloc, which was itself set up as a competing global political and economics establishment to Western democracies and developed economies. The BRICS group is considered the foremost geopolitical rival to the G7 bloc of leading advanced economies. The BRICS group has introduced (in some instances weighed) rival initiatives that include the New Development Bank, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the BRICS payment system, the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication and the BRICS basket reserve currency. Therefore, the joint military exercise with Russia would at best not be read as a new and deliberate illustration of support by South Africa for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. This is as opposed to being read as a default historical position in BRICS that would logically be used by Russia as some indication of international support to its war from all BRICS nations. This would include other nations like Iran, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, among others, who expressed interest in joining the BRICS alliance in 2022, the very year that the Russia-Ukraine war began.
The questions are deep and existential for South Africa and some of the BRICS members. For example, does BRICS membership for South Africa come at the expense of exclusion from membership of other major global partnerships, even if this is not explicitly stated? Would it be possible going forward to be a non-aligned member to the BRICS establishment, which is overtly aimed at replacing (or at least reducing) the hegemony of Western political democracies, while still benefiting directly from those democracies, including the US and the EU? With which bloc is South Africa’s current political posture on paper (as a constitutional democracy) more aligned to facilitate seamless and sustainable cooperation? This is also a question about the nature of the collective soul of the nation. The question also links to the numerous political calls made in recent years to rewrite parts of the constitution for better alignment with the political wishes of the majority. If a national identity realignment that was also ideologically aligned with current and future BRICS members was achieved, what then would its cultural and economic costs be, and who (demographically speaking) would bear such costs? For example, are the South African youth and other groups willing to have their freedoms under the current constitution redefined away from Western democratic values for better alignment with the political values and aspirations most espoused in the majority of current (and future) BRICS countries like Russia or China, and possibly Iran in the future? These are some of the existential questions that require proper meditation and informed answers for South Africa’s long-term political and economic survival.
Given the recent negative USA–RSA diplomatic developments, an immediate question to ask would be: if the US Congress were to review its relations with SA and revoke SA’s benefits from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (i.e. AGOA), what would be the direct and indirect trade costs? And who would bear those? If the bulk of many such costs are likely to only emerge in the future, the question of who would be willing to bear them will need to be answered by the youth.
It is not the first time that South Africa’s benefits under the AGOA have been threatened, but it is the first time that they are threatened by political developments. In 2015, under the Obama administration, AGOA benefits to South Africa were threatened by allegations of unfair practices from US meat producers, who alleged that South Africa was blocking its export products.[i] Many modelling exercises were conducted for the various scenarios of what the AGOA benefit losses would imply for the general economic welfare of South African citizens. At that time, it was generally argued that the loss to South Africa of trade benefits under the AGOA would be devastating for many sectors that have benefited historically. Using partial equilibrium analysis, which only presents part of the story, I found that in the wine-exporting industry alone (which has direct links with the country’s tourism sector) losing AGOA benefits would have direct negative impacts on a sector whose size was estimated at R36.1 billion. The loss would endanger more than 300 000 jobs, affecting mostly low to semi-skilled Black workers.[ii] Looking at all product lines, of which there are more than 6 500, we are looking at much higher values. In 2021, the US ranked number two (after China) of individual country destinations receiving South African exports (i.e. USD 14 Billion), with mining taking the biggest chunk of the pie. Looking at only these sector numbers and demographics, covering just those who would be directly affected, few would disagree that SA cannot afford to lose jobs, especially in sectors like mining and agriculture, which are labour intensive and employ mostly Black workers. The potential economic price of a USA–RSA fallout would be way too high for this generation, which includes the youth, to bear, where alternative benefits from Russia-SA relations in particular are currently so obscure.