As Trump upends world order, SA needs to recalibrate foreign policy to be more responsive

12 Feb 2025

South Africa needs a cohort of career and well-trained diplomats. Currently, the diplomatic service is disproportionately laden with ill-equipped political appointees, especially in key postings.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) presented on 6 February 2025 was unique both in its historical significance and its substance.

It was the first reflection of the administration’s policy iterations and intentions since the formation of a coalition government in May 2024 — an address by a democratic president under an ANC that had not won an outright majority in the last election.

Much of the policy iterations were, surprisingly for a coalition government, in the main a regurgitation of previous Sonas of the past two decades at least.

However, what made the Sona special was that this was the first address that dedicated a considerable amount of time and reflection to South Africa’s foreign policy. More so, this is a year in which South Africa is presiding over the G20, giving the country a once-in-a-generation chance to showcase its credibility to the world.

It has always been an oddity that a country of South Africa’s strategic significance in regional, continental and global affairs has — at least, since 2008 when then president Thabo Mbeki unceremoniously left office — always paid scant regard to foreign policy.

South Africa is a middle power and a bridge builder in so far as its position in global affairs is concerned. This position is born out of the country having the most sophisticated and advanced economy in Africa.

Celebrated constitutional and democratic ethos

The country’s celebrated constitutional and democratic ethos — upheld within what has been up until now a US-led international liberal order — stands as a beacon of hope on a continent plagued by authoritarianism, economic collapse, and unconstitutional changes of government.

As a result, democratic South Africa was perceived for good reasons as a leader in the region and the continent. For the longest time, South Africa was described as a “punching above its weight” and as the “gateway” to Africa.

Of all the democratic administrations, the internationalist Mbeki seemed to best grasp this unique and privileged position that the country occupied. Ramaphosa’s 2025 Sona demonstrates that the country may have come full circle in reckoning with its strategic position in the world.

South Africa’s reckoning and soul searching regarding its foreign policy is a result of myriad issues. At the core of those factors is a rapidly changing and volatile global governance system brought about by the diminishing role of a US-led unipolar world that is threatened by a rising China — a world that Ramaphosa mischaracterised in his Sona as multipolar instead of being in a vortex, with power and dominance shifting from Washington to Beijing.

There have been simplistic assessments that seek to reduce the current global governance issues to the type of leadership in Washington. Such depictions miss the point that during the last three US administrations, there have not been many differences in how that superpower engages with the world, except in aesthetics.

The shift can be traced to the Barack Obama presidency, when the United States started undermining one of the preeminent architectures of the international governance institutions, the World Trade Organization.

When President Donald Trump first came into office in 2018, global foreign policy elites gasped in shock as he veered off decades-old economic and commercial diplomatic approaches.

What is not often stated is how former US president Joe Biden took the baton from his predecessor and continued with many of his policies, signifying that the shift went beyond personalities. In other words, the Biden administration had more continuities than discontinuities with Trump’s first administration.

This on its own should have rung alarm bells in a middle power such as Pretoria.

Admittedly, Ramaphosa’s 2025 Sona indicates that those alarm bells have finally rung, albeit dramatically. The alarm bells would have been triggered by Trump and his inner circle’s social media utterances on South Africa’s transformation policies that seek to address the country’s painful and exclusionary past.

Maybe the most materially disturbing development was that of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s threat to not attend the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meetings scheduled for the end of February in Johannesburg. This should be treated as a current threat since it has not yet been communicated to Pretoria via a diplomatic note.

X megaphone diplomacy

It is worth noting that despite all the X megaphone diplomacy that characterises current global engagements, including a similar version in China commonly known as “wolf warrior” diplomacy, the practice of diplomatic engagements between nations remains quite formal, if not archaic. Nations still communicate with each other through note verbale or third-party notes.

The question for South Africa, therefore, is how the country should respond not only to the Trump phenomenon, but more broadly to a situation in which, as a middle power, it finds itself navigating a world in flux.

There is a two-level response that Pretoria has to contend with. The first is at a philosophical level, which includes recalibrating or taking stock of its foreign policy from a values and strategic perspective. Secondly and equally important is taking an audit of the country’s own practice of diplomacy.

Both these responses are complex for a country such as South Africa that has a complicated history and a set of unusual domestic challenges.

Ramaphosa dedicated a great deal of time restating what South African foreign policy entails from a national interest perspective. This was quite refreshing because the country’s key partners, especially from the Global North, had generally found it difficult to understand what encompassed Pretoria’s national interest.

As expected, Ramaphosa’s iteration espoused what one can call a humanistic and solidarity foreign policy. This is referred to in official government documents as “diplomacy of ubuntu” and “progressive internationalism”.

The question is whether this philosophical outlook on the country’s foreign policy is still fit for purpose. One could argue that in a world that President Ramaphosa rightly describes as characterised by “pursuit of narrow interests” and “survival of the fittest”, Pretoria’s foreign policy must also adjust to the new reality.

Such an adjustment would entail South Africa narrowly aligning its economic and commercial interests with the country’s foreign policy objectives.

This would require a paradigm shift within Pretoria’s foreign policy establishment, a change that may be easier to embrace in the context of the Government of National Unity. Such a realignment would include changing “small” elements such as how the country characterises itself.

Middle power

For instance, Ramaphosa refers to the country as developing, instead of more empowering terms such as “middle power” or “emerging economy”. India would be a great country to learn how to engage in what that country terms strategic non-alignment. The European Union also has an emerging foreign policy of strategic autonomy from which South Africa could take its cue.

At the core of South African foreign policy should be the pursuit of commercial and economic diplomatic outcomes. This would mean participating fully in extracting gains from emerging industries such as critical minerals, artificial intelligence, the green economy and space diplomacy.

At the second level of the practice of diplomacy, the country should not engage in tit-for-tat X diplomacy, save for exceptional circumstances such as the Rwanda case. South Africa should mainly respond to official diplomatic communications. This is because as a middle power the country may find itself having to be reactionary rather than proactive in the Twitter space.

Still in the practice of the art of diplomacy, South Africa needs a cohort of career and well-trained diplomats. Currently, the diplomatic service is disproportionately laden with ill-equipped political appointees, especially in the upper echelons and unfortunately in key postings.

Pretoria should also invest in media diplomacy, both in the commercial media platforms through thought leadership, and running a well-trained, professionalised press office.

In the current global governance conundrum, it would be helpful if Ramaphosa could fully embrace and embody the country’s foreign policy.

This is already inescapable due to the country’s leadership of the G20 in 2025, but beyond that, the fact that Trump embodies and articulates US foreign policy necessitates a Pretoria that reciprocates with a presidency that views itself as the key foreign policy agency.

Ramaphosa’s Sona provides a good starting point for recalibrating the country’s foreign policy to be more responsive to a rapidly changing world.

Embracing a more realist foreign policy doctrine anchored on strategic non-alignment prioritising economic and commercial diplomacy is not antithetical to a humane approach to the world.

Instead, the economic and commercial gains would bring benefits that contribute to narrowing inequality, poverty and unemployment in a way that humanises the majority of South Africans.

This should be the ultimate goal of any foreign policy, more so in an emerging and highly unequal economy. DM

Azwimpheleli Langalanga is executive director at Africa GeoStrategic Advisors. He holds a Master’s in International Law and Economics from the World Trade Institute in Bern, and a Master of Laws in Labour Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

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Celebrated constitutional and democratic ethos