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On February 6, the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives.

Tensions between the nations have ramped up since South Africa made a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but the US is also struggling with other sore points like SA’s ties to Russia and China.

The bill says: “In contrast to its stated stance of nonalignment, the South African Government has a history of siding with malign actors, including Hamas, a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and a proxy of the Iranian regime, and continues to pursue closer ties with the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) and the Russian Federation”.

The bill alleges that the African National Congress (ANC) has had ties with Hamas since 1994, when the ANC party first came to power. It also accuses SA government members and ANC leaders of making anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The bill recounts instances of SA leaders condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and communicating with leaders from Hamas and Iran.

The bill also identifies South Africa’s “robust relationship with Russia” which “spans the military and political space” and the country’s interactions with the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China and the US are South Africa’s two biggest trading partners, and in turn, South Africa is the biggest trading partner in Africa for both the US and China.

Al Jazeera reported that South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, visited Washington, DC recently in what is believed to have been a trip to soothe the tensions between SA and the US.

In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, Pandor said, “There’s almost an implication that when America holds a particular position, South Africa must follow,” adding that other countries that hold the same position as South Africa might not be dealt with the same way. “I don’t know whether it’s because we’re Africans or some other reason.”

She speculated that the bill was introduced in large part because of SA’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza and the fact that South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the ICJ on December 29, 2023.

She pointed out that Washington’s “disquiet” over South Africa taking Israel to the ICJ has been mentioned in a “number of resolutions”, citing a bipartisan letter to the Biden administration signed by 200 legislators in January “denouncing the hostile genocide allegations levied by South Africa against Israel” at ICJ.

Pandor added that the recent bill’s allegation that ANC “has some form of partnership with Hamas” is “entirely untrue”.

She added that the bill also has to do with South Africa’s non-aligned stance on Russia and Ukraine.

“Our underlying fundamental philosophy in foreign policy is we always seek peace, we always seek negotiation. We are mandated by the Freedom Charter of South Africa to always pursue international peace and friendship,” Pandor said.

US President Joe Biden is expected to submit a report containing the findings of the reassessment of relations to the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House and the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate within 120 days after — and if — the bill is enacted.

The bill has not yet been voted on, but passed the House Committee of Foreign Affairs on a voice vote last week.

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Joel Samoff, a retired adjunct professor at the Center for African Studies at Stanford University, reckons it is not that likely that the bill will pass both Houses of Congress and get signed by the president.

Samoff described the US bill as a “symbolic act rather than a legislative act” introduced to signal that policymakers and legislators in Washington are “not happy that South Africa has brought a case to the International Court [of Justice]”.

He emphasised the significance of the relationship between South Africa and the US, anticipating efforts to uphold it, adding that although “politics are politics” and both countries face political pressures to move in various directions, on a larger scale, “the relationship is important enough to protect it”.

Having signed several cooperative trade agreements, South Africa is the US’s largest trading partner in Africa, with $9.3 billion worth of US exports going to South Africa in 2022.

But in November last year, US Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who has historic ties to SA, wrote a document proposing several amendments to legislation renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), including that there should be an immediate review of SA’s status for preferential trade access, News24 reported.

AGOA, which is up for renewal in 2025, gives duty-free access to 25% of South African exports to the US, SA’s second-biggest single-country trading partner after China. The WSJ, and others, quantify the benefit as more than $3 billion (R57 billion).

While the unstated threat of potential removal from the AGOA hovers over the US-South Africa relationship, Samoff says “it seems unlikely, at least in the current administration, that the US would do anything to jeopardise AGOA”.

While the rhetoric around the AGOA focuses on how it gives African nations easier access to the US, it also in effect makes the US a preferential market for African products.

American think-tank, the Brookings Institution, said the “narrative that a loss of AGOA benefits would have catastrophic consequences for South Africa is uninformed”, adding that the direct impact of the loss of AGOA preferences on South Africa’s export and economic growth “would be very small”.

“But a loss of AGOA could have ramifications for the US. The US relies on South Africa for a range of critical minerals,” the institute said.

“In 2021, the US imported nearly 100% of its chromium from South Africa as well as over 25% of its manganese, titanium, and platinum. Leveraging AGOA as a form of economic diplomacy is key for encouraging the security of critical mineral supplies.”

Pandor bullishly notes that we are an important partner for America, as they are for us, hoping that “we will be able to repair the relationship and continue on the established basis that we’ve built up over many years”.

[sources:aljazeera&news24]