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Middle East is a key focus of Ramaphosa’s foreign policy, more than any other region

Bhaso Ndzendze
By Bhaso Ndzendze
1 Apr 2025
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The Middle East has been a space for South Africa to assertively test the limits of its sovereignty against the other major outside player in the region, the US.

Today’s Middle East is at once a land of opportunity, crises and of overlapping power competitions – just the three key ingredients to test the foreign policy mettle of any South African head of state and government looking to bend, if ever so slightly, a changing global landscape towards the benefit of the country and its population.

For these reasons, the Middle East is and has been a key component of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s international policy, to a degree that is not matched by any other region nor by any previous South African leader.

Competition, opportunity and crises


Opportunity abounds in the Middle East because of its rapid development, growing outbound investment and world-leading oil reserves.

Crises because of its protracted, seemingly eternal conflicts.

And power contestation because of external and internal competition to both control the direction of those resources and to shape the course of the conflicts – and to fashion the region in one’s image: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey after their versions of Islam; and the US for the maximisation of its interests and those of its closest (and perhaps increasingly only) ally, Israel.

There are also less-prominent but highly determined emerging powers such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). At peace within their borders, the likes of Qatar have sought to play a mediating role in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo conflict – noticing a critical gap that South Africa and the African Union have so far been unable to fill.

By contrast, the UAE is a source of weapons to Sudan’s no-holds-barred civil war that has displaced 12.5 million people and killed at least 150,000.

In its Levant and Yemeni outer edges, the Middle East is also dotted by a litany of non-state actors including militant groups seeking to violently form new countries or take power within existing ones – typically backed by some or many of the competing states.

Infrequent but seismic moments such as the rise of the Islamic State and the successful overthrow of the al-Bashar regime in December 2024 give proof of concept and inspire imitation (means of funding are hardly scarce too).

South Africa has been caught in the crosshairs too. In 2019, it was confirmed by the investigative organisation Open Secrets that military equipment manufactured by the jointly owned Rheinmetall Denel Munition, in which the South African government has a 49% stake, had been used in the ongoing conflict in Yemen. The materiel was valued at a minimum R9-billion, with the exports having been shipped in 2015 and 2016.

Cyril of Arabia?


What has been the foreign policy outlook of South Africa under Ramaphosa in this corner of the world? At R76.9-billion in 2024, the Middle East represented a modest 3% of South Africa’s total R2-trillion exports, while the region accounted for 11.3% of total imports (R200-billion out of R1.8-trillion). Imports of the region’s oil is particularly high – representing 78.4% of South Africa’s overall imports from the Middle East in 2024, and 46% of the country's overall oil imports in the same year.

The trade data shows a 54% growth in South African exports to the region since 2018, when Ramaphosa became president. This has been in part due to his efforts, including through a series of high-profile visits.

He has officially been to the UAE three times, Saudi Arabia twice and Qatar once. The visits to the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been followed by investment pledges. It might have been such ties which allowed for the ruler of the UAE to land at an Eastern Cape police- and military-operated airport (Bulembu) with an entourage of 500 others in April 2023. President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan reportedly stayed for two weeks at a privately owned resort he had built on land bought in the province two years before.

Noticeably, South Africa’s exports to the Middle East are dominated by the UAE itself (at R49-billion, or 63%). This is followed by Saudi Arabia (R7.1-billion, or 9.2%) and Turkey (R7.06-billion, or 9.18%). Israel comes fourth, at R3.2-billion (4.1%) of South Africa’s exports to the Middle East.

Despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case of genocide opened by South Africa against Israel for its actions in Gaza, Israel still sourced 15% of its coal from South Africa. The rest of the order of export ranking is made up, respectively, of Kuwait (R2-billion), Jordan (R1.16-billion), Iraq (R1.1-billion), Qatar (R1.3-billion), Oman (R1.14-billion), Yemen (R732-million), Iran (R364.6-million) and Lebanon (R174.3-million).

The Iran puzzle


South Africa’s relationship with Iran poses a bit of a puzzle. Tehran and Pretoria have in recent years seemingly got closer, with Iran being invited to join BRICS in August 2023 during South Africa’s chairpersonship.

However, as evidently seen, South Africa barely has a market in the 90 million-strong country. Indeed, South African goods have had better success in war-torn Yemen – outcompeting Iran by 50% in value difference in 2024.

With no change in size – even a decade before that, South African exports to Iran were worth R1.1-billion – the relationship seems to follow the typical pattern of the ANC’s politics first, economics second approach when faced with difficult choices between economic interests and a more political foreign policy.

An exceptional region of paradoxes


It is quite clear that the Middle East has been a signature region for Ramaphosa’s foreign policy, to a degree not yet fully appreciated.

Naturally, he has engaged a selection of key countries, rather than every issue and actor in the region. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran and – for different reasons – Israel have occupied much of South Africa’s attention. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for trade and investment; Iran for geopolitical reasons; and Israel for the conflict in Palestine.

Whenever Ramaphosa has hosted the BRICS summit there has been talk of expansion, and such expansion has always included at least one Middle Eastern country. During the 2018 meeting he invited the president of Turkey and there were rumours of a pending invite which eventually did not materialise.

And of course, when he hosted the summit in August 2023, the rumours proved true – not one but three Middle Eastern states were invited to take up membership in the group: Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Egypt, too, being a sort of bridge between Africa and the region, was added).

On the other hand, the Israel-Palestine conflict has seen an unprecedentedly risky and confrontational decision by South Africa in the form of the ICJ genocide case against the Netanyahu government.

The Middle East has been a space for South Africa to assertively test the limits of its sovereignty against the other major outside player in the region, the US.

This partially explains the BRICS outreach, the proximity to Iran and, to some extent, the ICJ case.

But if there is a foreign policy objective to the anti-US posture – other than sovereignty for its own sake – it is not yet apparent. Moreover, there is a paradox to Pretoria’s tactics and patterns of engagement with the region, as trade and foreign policy seem at a mismatch.

Either by inertia or lack of dexterity, South Africa trades substantially more with its ideological opponent (Israel) than it does with its friend (Iran) in the region. DM


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