Ndzendze is an associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Johannesburg.

He recently published an opinion article that first appeared in the Sowetan Live on 11 February 2025.

To an unprecedented degree, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) was defined by foreign policy.

Predictably, there were the usual promises and commitments around the typical socioeconomic issues. However, what grabbed most headlines the next day were his utterances on SA’s sovereignty. “We will not be bullied,” was his statement of defiance. Given the reactions, the president had read the domestic audience correctly.

Hardly a day later, however, his US counterpart, Donald Trump, issued an executive order titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”, which, among others, froze US aid to SA, and committed to assisting the Afrikaner population relocate and grant them refugee status.

The executive order follows weeks of successive presidential actions and declarations that signal increased influence by SA-born billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk. It is also blatantly misinformed.

For one, there are no land grabs under way, and the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (cited in the order), does not grant the government the power to seize private property. Nor does it target any particular group. Instead, it specifies conditions under which the government may make use of unused land.

The majority-Afrikaner groups AfriForum and Solidariteit have admitted as much, in addition to walking back from some of their claims and accusations against the government of being responsible for an unproven “white genocide”. Earlier in the same week, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced he would not be attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg under SA’s presidency in November.

Why is all this happening now? Though hardly in perfect harmony – never before and since the Clinton-Mandela golden years – has the SA-US relationship undergone unparalleled stress tests as in the past weeks. Of course, this is due to international lobbying by some elements within SA society, different positions on geopolitical questions and the return of Trump.

Trump’s second term has been characterised by a much more efficient approach. He has been eager and effective in delivering on his campaign promises and some unfinished business from his initial stint in the White House. One of those areas is his attention towards SA.

It was in 2018 that he first instructed his administration to “look into” the claims of land-grabbing in SA. That statement came on the heels of concerted lobbying by AfriForum, with its leaders having undertaken a trip to the US for this express purpose. Nothing concrete came of this at the time.

Nearly seven years later, however, Trump seems not only to have made up his mind on SA during his brief four-year ousting but has come to surround himself with hardliners on SA, most notably Musk. Musk ostensibly has an axe to grind with Pretoria, owing to a failed deal to license Starlink without an equity partner and has the US president’s ear.

For some in SA’s government, the country is being punished for what it considers its principled stand on international issues on which the two countries take opposing sides. During Trump’s first term, relations between Pretoria and Washington could best be described as politically cold but politically hot.

The 2018-2021 period saw SA’s exports to the US grow from R89.1bn to R116.3bn by 2020, against total imports of R72.3bn from America. SA retained its trade surplus position, despite the trade deficit-obsessed Trump White House, which had seen a trade war with China and a reconfiguration of the North American Free Trade Agreement into the US, Mexico, Canada Agreement.

While the threat of tariffs on SA was issued, diplomatic efforts ensured they were scrapped. American need for SA platinum and automobiles must also be underscored as among the primary motives for the change in the US position.

A lot has happened since Trump left the White House in 2021. Hardly a year later, on 24 February 24 2022, Russia invaded US ally Ukraine.

In the years since, SA, officially neutral, has carried out a joint military exercise with Russia, came very close to hosting Putin for the 2023 Brics Summit, and been accused of arming the aggressor, in an explosive announcement made by the then-US aAmbassador himself, Dr Reuben E. Brigety.

It was not this, however, which seems to have drawn the ire of the incumbent administration, which is yet to announce its representative in Pretoria. Trump’s position on Ukraine seems to be unclear. Rather, it seems to have been the case brought forward by SA to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against key US ally Israel. The SA vs. Israel case was strongly condemned by the Biden White House too, but its successor takes a much less subtle approach.

Closer to home, the conflict in the DRC has caught national attention, with good reason. After the death of 14 SA soldiers on a peacekeeping mission, tensions grew between presidents Ramaphosa and Paul Kagame with a harshly worded response by the latter to an original statement by the former on his country’s version of events.

At their core was the question of whether the SA forces had been killed by the reportedly Rwanda-backed M23 or even the Rwandan army itself or by the Congolese in a crossfire.

When Ramaphosa asserted that SA would not be bullied, he may as well have been addressing his counterpart in Kigali too. For the first time in the democratic era, the prospect of a war with a fellow African state became a real possibility.

The events of recent weeks show external and domestic forces moving SA towards a more confrontational path. So far, the government has handled them well, but they show that SA needs to not only be a “soft power” player, relying on its values, rhetoric and image but a hard one as well.

To not be bullied, the country should ensure its standing by having a strong military and a diversified, growing and industrialising economy that can withstand any future threats.

*The views expressed in this article are that of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect that of the University of Johannesburg.