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The diplomatic divide: How South Africa's alliances challenge US foreign policy goals

10 Mar 2025

The differences between South Africa and the US are not mainly about principle, but rather about networks of alignment — the US has close ties to some dictatorships, and both it and South Africa are inconsistent in their condemnation of human rights issues.

A crucial test for the alignment or misalignment between any two countries is not only their bilateral relations, but also the state of their ties to third parties.

In this regard, South Africa’s proximity to countries that are under United States sanctions proves just how deep and fundamental the schism with the US truly runs. Pretoria and Washington might be experiencing a dramatic and unprecedentedly confrontational clash as of recent weeks, but their divergent views on the global order have differed markedly for a long time.

One need only look at South Africa’s trade and diplomatic engagement with a number of states that have been on the receiving end of US sanctions over the past decade: Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Syria.

Sanctions in the international arena

Economic sanctions against a country generally come from two sources, which often overlap: the United Nations and individual state sanctions.

The UN Security Council is able to take action with the express purpose of maintaining or restoring international peace and security. It is empowered to do so by Article 41 of the UN Charter, which allows for a variety of options short of the use of armed force.

Within South Africa, the agencies responsible for administering financial and trade sanctions are the Financial Intelligence Centre and the Import and Export Control Unit of the International Trade Administration Commission.

US sanctions cover numerous states, including those with comprehensive sanctions and others with more targeted (individual-specific) sanctions imposed on them.

Examples of the former are Cuba (in place since 1958 and escalated at various points in 1963, 1992, 1996 and 2000); Iran (in force since 1979 and enhanced in 2017); North Korea (in place since 1950 and enhanced in 2016); and Syria (2011). States with targeted sanctions by the US include Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Cuba

The most self-evident case for South Africa’s marked difference from the US with regards to sanctioned countries is Cuba. The country has been at loggerheads with the US since the late 1950s, when it had a communist revolution and proceeded to nationalise American enterprises.

For the now co-governing ANC, however, the Cuban Revolution is looked upon fondly as Havana proceeded to give nearly unmatched levels of military assistance and support to the anti-apartheid Struggle. In the decades since 1994, the two have become even closer, while a rapprochement between the US and Cuba under President Barack Obama proved short-lived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJdf67PwmS8

The long-standing American blockade against Cuba (in place since 1960) shows no signs of abating. Marco Rubio, a second-generation child of Cuban immigrants opposed to the regime there, has, as the US Secretary of State, doubled down on designating Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism.

All the while, South Africa’s ties to Cuba have only grown with cooperation in areas such as medicine, education, science and shared values (at least with the ANC component of the governing coalition) on nearly all international issues. Trade has been growing, too. In 2021, South Africa’s exports to Cuba stood at R10.3-million, but by 2023 they had grown to R51.9-million (or a growth rate of 403%).

Within a few days of taking office, Secretary Rubio issued a statement labelled “Restoring a Tough US-Cuba Policy” in which he laid out measures that will roll back any progress made by the Joe Biden Administration on thawing relations between the two neighbours.

Venezuela

Another somewhat similar set of ties South Africa enjoys with a Latin American regime that is on the US sanctions list is Venezuela. The two countries have experienced a recent upsurge in their trade, with Venezuela-bound exports totalling R28.8-million in 2021, and growing to R209.8-million in 2023 (a growth rate of 628%).

In his first term, President Donald Trump endorsed regime change in the country, including by recognising Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim leader in 2019 following an election deemed unfree and unfair by the US.

While some in Caracas are hopeful that the second Trump administration will approach Venezuela differently out of pragmatism — particularly to get the South American country to accept more migrant deportees — early indicators point to an uncompromising White House.

Already, in late February Trump declared that he would cancel a 2022-initiated exception to the sanctions that allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela jointly with the state-owned PDVSA. His reasoning included slow action on returning migrants, as well as electoral reforms.

By contrast, a statement issued by a group of elections observers who self-identified as belonging to the ANC, Cosatu and SACP on 29 July 2024 declared the Venezuelan elections free and fair, writing that “claims or allegations of fraud have been found to be baseless and mischievous with Venezuela’s electoral system considered one of the best in the world”. The two positions could not be further apart.

Iran

A key bone of contention between the US and South Africa is the latter’s close ties to Iran, a country regarded by both the Democratic and Republican parties as a strategic opponent of the US and its principal ally Israel.

In his first term, Trump scrapped the Iran Nuclear Deal, thereby reinstating harsh sanctions against the oil-rich nation. By contrast, over the past three years, exports from South Africa to Iran have more than doubled, growing from R71.9-million to R304.9-million in 2023, or 324%.

It is clear that Iran is a top issue for the Trump administration, despite the recent election of a more moderate president in the Middle Eastern country. For its part, the ANC has doubled down on its ties with Iran, which is also a BRICS member alongside South Africa, as of 2024.

Syria

With the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the tide of US-Syria relations signalled possible change. While that seems to be ambiguous, recent Israeli military operations within the country’s territory give indications of continued hostility.

The past decade and a half has seen US sponsorship of anti-Assad forces, surgical strikes (including by Trump in 2017), and sanctions. However, during the same timeframe South African exports to Syria have experienced numerous highpoints, moving from R118.6-million in 2014 to R160-million the next year, before experiencing a prolonged decline up until 2020 when they reached R14-million. Since 2021, however, they have experienced uninterrupted growth and most recently measured at a modest but noticeable R30.2-million in 2023.

In December last year, the Bashar al-Assad regime fell to the rebels and a new government was declared, currently headed by interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, who the US and the UN had previously designated as a terrorist.

But while the US position on the new Syrian regime is yet to be made clear (Trump has stated that the developments in the country are not America’s “fight”), the South African government has practically recognised it, including in a statement condemning Israel’s military strikes in the Daraa Province that lies in the south of the country.

In recent weeks, the US Department of Defense has been making plans to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syria. However, as long as Israel and Syria continue to clash, as they seem almost set to do, the US-SA relationship will have yet another minefield to potentially walk into.

GNU implications and the future of sanctions

South Africa and the United States differ fundamentally on who’s worth punishing and ostracising in the world. Yet these differences are not mainly about principle, but rather about networks of alignment — the US has close ties to some dictatorships of its own, and both it and South Africa are inconsistent in their condemnation of human rights issues.

This makes it difficult to navigate the more confrontational relationship that Pretoria and Washington have now entered. Indeed, conflicts are fuelled not only by disagreements, but equally by structural factors, alignments among them.

This was what led to the rest of the globe being engulfed into the two previous world wars. In the absence of the voluntary and colonial alliance structures, they could have remained isolated conflicts within Europe and parts of the Pacific. The Cold War was also driven by the strategic expansion of networks of alignment.

Within the Government of National Unity context, various political parties — and in particular the largest two — have different views on these countries and global issues. This has not gone unnoticed in Washington, which seems eager to engage outside diplomatic channels with South Africa.

Reports of a recent DA-led meeting with officials from a White House that has issued false and divisive executive orders on South Africa shows cracks in the coalition arrangement.

Yet the ANC president and minister of international relations can scarcely complain — they set the precedent of unilateralism when they disregarded internal consultation on blatantly political statements and actions, including the order to Taiwan to remove its offices from Pretoria, and in referring to Russia as an ally of South Africa following last year’s BRICS summit in Kazan.

The historical effectiveness and future utility of sanctions is doubtable, but they will continue to serve one key political purpose: as a test of faultlines and clashing loyalties in what is quickly becoming the Second Cold War. DM

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