A ‘bully’ or a ‘true statesman’ — readers have their say on Trump putting the squeeze on SA

US Secretary of State Rubio drops bombshell, won’t attend G20 summit in SA, cites ‘anti-Americanism’

So, Mr Rubio. It’s easy to be a bully when you are sitting comfortably in you own country, but you & and your so-called president (I purposely do not use a capital) are too cowardly to make your comments face to face. That’s fine with us!!

Stay in your own strife-ridden country and sort out your own problems instead of interfering where it is not needed OR required OR asked for and making more problems for other countries. – Andre Delport

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So, anti-immigrant, anti-Palestinian, anti-environmental care, anti-China, anti-inclusivity, and more are all okay. Just don’t be anti-Americanism, which actually isn’t anti-Americanism (because last time I looked there are many millions of Americans who are pro-immigrant, pro-Palestinian, pro-environment), it is anti-Trumpism. The G20 is supposed to be about discussing global issues with the aim of finding workable global solutions.  America under Trump is showing itself to be unwilling, or unable, to participate like an adult in open discussion, which makes it come across as weak and unsure of itself, insecure in its own demands. This is a childish, bullying stance to take. Sad for a country that has become a world leader precisely because of all of those things it is now anti. – Geoff Krige

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It seems to me that the SA government wants to run with the hares, and hunt with the hounds. One cannot blame the USA for being unhappy with SA cosying up to Russia and China, both countries run by dictators with imperial ambitions, (Crimea and beyond and Taiwan), and little care for the human rights of their own citizens. We have so many problems at home that need to be addressed before we can afford the luxury of becoming embroiled with problems on the other side of the world.

It seems crazy to me to antagonise our second-highest trading partner. Why give the loose cannon that is Donald Trump any ammunition? Why would any forward-thinking person want to do this? – Gavin Hillyard, Somerset West

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In Daily Maverick today I saw that, if he or she were president for a day, a reader would “tax cash withdrawals and deposits at 20% to curb illicit transactions and increase government revenue”. Clearly, this person is unaware that this would simply make the poor even poorer and is unlikely to stop the corrupt from being corrupt or benefiting financially from their corrupt dealings.

According to the World Bank estimate in 2023, up to 12 million adult South Africans do not have a bank account. This means they are only able to transact in cash – and this means that the people doing business with them have to receive cash and have to deposit cash. The banks already make this difficult and expensive. Adding on another 20% would make doing business with the poor almost impossible, unless a further 20% were added to transactions with them. Which would be unfair and immoral.

As a person who deals with people who have no option but to pay cash, I would like to outline a particular problem that I think Daily Maverick could look into, because it ties in with many of the issues that are covered by you, and is a particularly nasty and pernicious example of capitalism as currently practised.

Unlike people like your reader, who no doubt have cards and apps and clever watches and contracts, poor people and those in more remote areas are not able to have contracts or to buy their airtime or electricity from their banks or when doing their grocery shopping at supermarkets and pay for it with their cards. But they still need to buy especially electricity (at least at the beginning of the month; later in the month they just have to sit in the dark), airtime and data, and they do this with cash, and often from a small local vendor.

About 85% of all mobile phone packages in the country are prepaid. About 80% of South African households that have electricity use prepaid meters. All those on prepaid services have to buy their top-ups from somewhere, and a significant proportion of this is done through small vendors, like spaza shops and individuals who are contracted to services like Kazang, Flash and iKhokha. This is mostly done with cash.

As a small vendor, one contracts with a middleman, who offers an app. One prepays into a “wallet” and can then vend. In reward, one gets a commission. This is between 1% and 4% for airtime (but the percentage is based on the vendor’s turnover, so most vendors don’t approach 4% – and you have to fight like nothing to get the 4% even if your turnover reaches the point where it is due), and about 1% for electricity. One can offer various other services, but these usually attract even smaller commissions. Naturally, the money earned has to get back into the bank account of the middleman, so that one can continue to vend. It is not possible to allow people to buy for anything other than cash, since the charges for card transactions are about 3% to 4%, and clearly, if you are only getting 1% commission, card transactions are out of the question.

These commissions are risible when one considers that:

All risk to the primary suppliers is outsourced to the middlemen. All risk to the middlemen is outsourced to the vendors, as vendors prepay in order to sell services, collect the cash, bank the cash, carry losses when the primary suppliers don’t honour the prepaid codes entered, and run the risk of being hit over the head and being robbed at any time because there are no nearby banking facilities.

I don’t believe the middlemen are to blame; I am pretty sure (but do not know) that it is the primary suppliers – the airtime companies and Eskom – who are outsourcing all their risk for very little cost, and to the detriment of the poorest people.

To put this all into perspective, a vendor that I help in a township called eSizameleni outside of Wakkerstroom, a dorp in Mpumalanga, works every day from 8am to 7pm. He turns over about R130,000 a month through his machine. Because that machine is linked to another machine (I have an internet café in Wakkerstroom and we operate a machine from there and so he can benefit from the combined turnover thresholds) he gets a higher percentage than most other vendors in the area. His gross profit at the end of the last month was R2,653.52. There are ways to reduce the cost of depositing cash, but if a vendor did not know those ways, or was unable to implement them (many are attached to how much is deposited and a small vendor does not have lots of capital), it would cost in the order of R1,820 to deposit this cash at an ATM, which would leave a net profit of about R833.

Little wonder, then, that many small vendors add a fee (even though this is not legal, at least not for electricity) for offering the service (not us or the vendor in eSizameleni: we consider it improper to do so). This is usually about R5. When you are poor, you buy for little amounts often. You therefore land up paying this fee often.

It makes me ill that Vodacom (as an example) posted an operating profit of R9.84-billion last year on the back of all these small vendors and their poor customers. It is disgusting that companies like Vodacom, MTN, DStv and Eskom externalise all their risk for so little reward to those carrying the risk, and force the poor into paying even more for their airtime and electricity (because of prepaid premiums and the extra costs charged by vendors) than everyone else pays. – Jane Harley, Wakkerstroom

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It would appear that it is AfriForum’s intention to disrupt the workings in South Africa. They need to explain in detail to the South African people what they complained about to the Trump government. Trump’s remarks regarding South Africa are alarming. It would appear that what they complained about happened during the Biden administration. AfriForum needs to explain why they did not complain to the Biden administration. – Sandra Moses

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It is high time for our government, along with those of many developing countries, to recognise the folly of reliance on foreign aid to support domestic growth and wellbeing, economic or otherwise. It is the expansion of trade domestically and foreign that generates the funding to support  such wellbeing. Let us seek to expand our trade to a far wider selection of countries, rather than focusing on the major ones. We should be sending trade missions and establishing commissions in many more countries. – Arthur Webb

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Pressure mounts on Health Minister Motsoaledi to remedy ‘catastrophic consequences’ of US aid freeze:

Regrettably, I think we must assume that there will be no further US aid after the review is complete and plan for that eventuality. I hope I am proved wrong. Surely our BRICS partners will step in and help fill the void left by the withdrawal of US aid? We should at least approach them for assistance. – Nick Miller

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Response to Stephen Grootes:

Thank you for your work as a journalist. However, in my opinion, which is based on the code of ethics for journalism, unbiased reporting needs to be the cornerstone.

I read your insert, and suggesting that Trump does not care about human life, reveals that you are most definitely reaching. 

The South African government has a duty to its own citizens, and unfortunately fails dismally. In Ramaphosa’s own words it is the ANC first, and, according to Dr Oriani-Ambrosini, he referred to whites as needing to be boiled like frogs, slowly. We need to review the opinion on the NDR in relation to this (National Democratic Revolution) which some suggest lies at the heart of the ANC ideology.

He further wishes he could tie white South Africans to trees so they can’t leave (Business Tech, 10 April 2019).

The ANC has known historical ties to Russia, Cuba and now China, openly supporting terrorist organisations, according to Gayton McKenzie.

The proposed name change of Sandton Drive to Leila Khaled Drive also reveals with whom we align. We need to also remind ourselves what happened outside the US embassy as reported by IOL on 23 January 2020, with the chant of one American, one bullet, ringing out.

Then consider the numerous slayings of whistle-blowers, etc.

Then there is the case of affirmative action brought before the UN, by Solidarity. The UN requires governments who have signed the convention, on the illumination of racial discrimination, to submit a report in this regard every two years to CERD, which was last submitted in 2004. Do the BRICS countries concern themselves with laws pertaining to human rights? Is BBBEE in the public interest? For the answer, we just need to ask RBM (Richards Bay Minerals) about this, and their assassinated managers, who foolishly thought they could simply request a report on who is benefiting from the millions of rands given under this law.

Trump, on the other hand, is not a South African, his statements confirm his stance based on America, and its people, first – as opposed to South Africa’s – and requires that the billions of rands given be used responsibly, a word our government simply does not understand.

The bigger picture, however, is that the facts stated above might be used as ammunition to limit the impact the Russians and Chinese have in Africa, considering the operations launched by the Wagner Group, under the auspices of freedom or liberation and such. These actions together with other economic strategies in the ultimate goal of purchasing support from African dictators, and in so doing, attaining mineral rights. But why South Africa? 

South Africa has a lot of influence in Africa, and is strategically placed at the tip of Africa, even though its influence has much declined over the years, and when considering this together with the fact that South Africa forms part of BRICS in order to become independent from the West, the West needs to act now. 

The consequence being that America removes financial aid, as a means to punish South Africa, before they become entirely independent, and they have no more sway over South Africa, a country that has no interest in taking care of its own.

The question is: are they doing it to us, or are we doing it to ourselves. Which of these rulers has our best interest at heart? – Vaughn Eybers

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It is possible that the US aid freeze has also impacted the vigour being applied by the ANC to implement NHI.

In Davos last week, our minister of health pontificated that the NHI was to be implemented, and that was that. Seven days later and it is announced that for the sake of the GNU, the NHI is going to be discussed again by the aligned political parties. Today our health minister announced that 15,000 health worker jobs could be lost due to the US aid freeze.

It is now clear that our Department of Health’s budget has been topped up by external funders, and the big plan was to continue this by implementing NHI.

Looking at the state of our public health facilities, where has our Treasury’s budget for health been spent? – David McCormick

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Facts matter, and when Stephen Grootes states as fact that the state cannot arbitrarily expropriate your land without paying for it, he is wrong, simply because the new law gives too much discretion to officialdom, and the circumstances under which nil can be paid is not absolute. Open-ended and in the hands of either incompetent or malicious actors, and one has an issue. So why not be tighter, more explicit? Why not involve the courts before and not after the expropriation? Objections to this are rational, obvious even.

Even more outrageous was Grootes suggesting that to withhold aid money from the Aids programmes was “immoral”. In full socialist mode, and without a hint of irony, we now have South Africans who believe they have a right to other people’s money, even while they disparage and name-call the same people. If this is not entitlement with a capital “E” then what is?

Victoria O’Regan repeats the talking points about South Africa’s many race-based laws not being “racist”, as Elon Musk suggests, missing entirely that many if not most of these laws would be illegal in the US. Laws that restrict or forbid or limit explicitly on the basis of racial minority exclusion, which ours proudly do and are justified as “fair discrimination”, are anathema to the new administration in the White House. This is the substance of it, and good journalism would grasp this nettle. – Martin Neethling, Constantia

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Stephen Grootes, who is the most benevolent country in the world? Could that possibly be Russia, or maybe Iran, or by some stretch of the imagination, China? Or perhaps, over the past several decades, could it possibly be the US? 

Stephen, please don’t write garbage in your articles. 

The US is now run by a competent businessman with a proven track record. No more wasteful expenditure. No more handouts to people who hate you, support your enemies and vote against you at the UN. No more sponsoring of DEI initiatives in foreign lands. 

Well done, Donald Trump. A true statesman who will be remembered for centuries to come. I can assure you your woke crowd are in the minority among intelligent, civilised people. – Robert Davidson

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Amazing how you shut down certain articles’ letter column if the groundswell narrative does not suit your woke agenda. No one is fooled. Musk is more than willing to invest in SA via Starlink. But not under the ANC’s anti-white, racist and discriminatory policies. Go Elon. We support you and your boss 100%. – Robert Davidson

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Donald Trump and South Africa: An opportunity not to be missed.

The article “Donald Trump and South Africa — this is just the beginning” is a thought-provoking view but short-sighted in that global alliances are generally short-lived, and in Africa have tended to benefit the external alliance partner without leaving any lasting benefit for the host country. South Africa is not in an economic position that enables it to ignore the larger trading markets.

Any economics student will tell you that the greatest source of funding is foreign direct investment (FDI), not because it brings funding but because it brings training, skills and employment, delivering long-term economic benefit to the country. While BBEE in its current form has addressed some issues, there are aspects to it that make no sense, and the idea that we can attract FDI and then dictate that there be shared ownership of this investment is illogical to any corporate that must answer to its shareholders. Capitalist business may have social welfare programmes, but they care little for socialist tendencies.

It cannot be denied that in the past 30 years South Africa has positively impacted the lives of many, but these have mainly been social improvements which leave the populace dependent on the government for things like access to education, water and sanitation. While these are important, they are not addressing the power of self-determination and personal growth through employment, which in turn will benefit the national fiscus and the running of the country. 

The power of South Africa is in the diversity of its people, not only the local black diversity, but also a rich mix of global diversity with many nations from around the world, and we need to harness these connections.

The younger generation are full of hope for a bright future and the actions our country takes now will create the legacy that will be inherited in 50 years’ time.

The current situation is not something to be offended by but offers an opportunity to strengthen ties with major trading partners to the economic benefit of the people, by creating employment and skills transfer. The idea that we can fix this in isolation is ludicrous. Having seen a global company, facing local government policy, opt to sell rather than accept a local equity partner, and this resulting in a downsizing of the employee base, loss of export contracts, loss of forex, loss of tax revenue, etc, it is time to adjust the current policies to address the next set of challenges for the benefit of the people.

A review of the current BBEE model is essential if we are to offer any hope to the future generations. Some suggestions on this front could be not forced BEE ownership, but forced use of local service providers and a model that creates these service providers where they don’t exist, a model that works towards a local internal skills base over an extended period, similar to that employed in the automotive industry. Potential tax breaks could be offered to these corporations for revenue generated and targets met. 

Donald Trump has opened the door to negotiations and this is not a time to become adversarial. It is incumbent on our current government to ensure that the legacy they leave behind benefits the future generations of our country. – Brian Jackson

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Good evening from London. I’ve just returned from an intense business and social week in SA. The mood among the dozens of South Africa’s most prominent business leaders was buoyant and optimistic. Stephen Grootes gets one thing totally wrong. Ramaphosa is not liked, he’s seen as weak and as having presided over the dullest economic and political period in our new democracy. A group of predominantly Zulu business people were almost euphoric that KZN would turn MK. They were all ANC stalwarts not long ago.

Trump is right to test the ANC – he is not testing SA, we are way stronger and far more resilient than that. I run a large business and I’d wager serious money that the US under Trump will never abandon the HIV/Aids drugs contributions or the mammoth vaccine programme they pay for. The countries you consider new possible friends are barely democracies and haven’t sent us a dime in saving our kids and our future. This is a poor rendition of what I’d expect Daily Maverick to publish. Sharpen up, this is the A game and you usually play it so well. – Damon Hoff

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I found it very strange for Trump to jump to conclusions without valid proof, about the state of Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa. Trump is not the president of the world, America has its own business to worry about. South Africa is a sovereign state on its own and must be given respect for that, like any other sovereign country.

I wish both countries could sit behind closed doors and solve these issues without harming the economy of both countries. 

America needs South Africa as South Africa needs America. God bless both countries. – Velefini Mhlongo