South Africa has appointed Roelf Meyer, a former minister and negotiator in the apartheid government, as the new ambassador to the United States in a move by President Cyril Ramaphosa to mend its strained ties with Washington.
Meyer, 78, replaces Ebrahim Rasool, who was expelled as South Africa’s ambassador to the US in March last year after he accused Donald Trump of leading a global “white supremacist” movement. South Africa has gone without diplomatic representation in Washington, DC, since then.
Meyer is a member of the white Afrikaner community, which led the apartheid government in South Africa for decades. Trump has accused the South African government of racial discrimination against Afrikaners.
So who is Meyer and will his appointment help improve ties between the two countries following a turbulent year?
Why have ties between the US and South Africa deteriorated?
The ties between the US and South Africa have deteriorated since Trump came to power in January 2024.
The US president has criticised the affirmative action policies to address inequalities that have continued since the end of the apartheid era. Trump has falsely claimed that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa. His administration has offered expedited citizenship for white Afrikaners “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.
South Africa’s move to file a case of genocide against US ally Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has also angered Washington. In January, the US accused South Africa of “cosying up to Iran” after Tehran was invited to participate in a BRICS wargames near South Africa’s coast. Iranian navy vessels were asked to withdraw from the wargames, which also included China and Russia.
South Africa is a founding member of the BRICS grouping that Trump sees as an economic threat.
The BRICS exercise came amid the buildup of US military assets in the Middle East. The US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, killing more than 2,000 people so far. A ceasefire was signed last week; diplomatic efforts are under way to end the war.
Trump has also frozen foreign assistance to South Africa over a land law that Trump falsely claims targets the white minority. Billionaire Elon Musk, a close aide of Trump, has also accused the South African government of pursuing racially discriminatory policies, biased against white citizens.
Musk has railed against a South African law that requires that at least 30 percent of a company’s ownership or economic involvement include Black South Africans in order to be eligible to operate.
“The South African laws are literally super racist, plain and simple. It’s not complicated: imagine if the law was called “White Empowerment”, instead of “Black Empowerment”! People would have a seizure,” he posted on his X platform on Wednesday.
“South Africa now has more anti-White laws than Apartheid had anti-Black laws. Think about that for a second …”
The law is part of the government’s affirmative action to help the Black majority, who remain poor. White Afrikaners, who form some 8 percent of the population, own more than 70 percent of the country’s land.
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