Steenhuisen: Top priority during govt visit to US will be growing economy
CAPE TOWN - Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen said his top priority during the government's visit to the United States (US) this week will be growing the economy and expanding employment opportunities, particularly in the agricultural sector.
Steenhuisen forms part of President Cyril Ramaphosa's delegation to America, where the president hopes to outline South Africa's trade agenda and repair a rocky relationship since the start of Donald Trump's presidency in January.
It's also been fuelled by misinformation about the country's laws and the expulsion of South Africa's ambassador to the US.
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Steenhuisen said as a proud member of the Government of National Unity (GNU) delegation, he will make every effort to mend and improve relations between the two countries.
Ramaphosa set off from Waterkloof Air Force Base on Sunday night on what's set to be one of his toughest diplomatic tasks since the formation of the GNU.
The visit comes just a week after 49 Afrikaners were welcomed by Trump's officials to the US capital and granted refugee status after claiming persecution in South Africa.
DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp said the delegation, which will include Steenhuisen, is expected to further the aspirations of all South Africans.
'This delegation to Washington, DC represents all South Africans who have entrusted us to put the shared national interest and the desire for economic growth and job creation first, ahead of any party or ideological positions.'
Wearing his ministerial hat, Aucamp said Steenhuisen's focus will be on maintaining preferential trade access to US markets.
'Losing these benefits will be disastrous for farmers, farmworkers, and the economy at large.'
Last week, Trump said he won't be joining the G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg in November because he continues to believe 'bad things' are happening in the country.
South Africa stands to lose its duty-free access to US markets for certain products, including agricultural goods, when the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is renegotiated in September.
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In short, the Eminent Persons Group is like a cocktail: a retired judge mixing with a former apartheid politician, a peace activist, a Grand Slam champion, a rocket scientist, a mountain climber, unionists, and the odd former businessperson or two — all now expected to guide and champion our National Dialogue. In weather terms, it's akin to entrusting the thermostat to a room full of thermometers — none of which agree on Fahrenheit or Celsius. Yet this isn't intended to draft an agenda — no, not at all. If it doesn't set the agenda, what does it mean to 'guide and champion'? Jobs are haemorrhaging, growth is nonexistent, and interest rates freeze whatever sizzle the economy once had. Budgetary greenhouse Meanwhile, on another planet entirely, we have assembled a budgetary greenhouse stocked with 400 members of the National Assembly, 90 from the National Council of Provinces, and a bloated Cabinet of 75 ministers and deputies. Yet the national agenda now rests on the shoulders of a hodgepodge of rugby captains, soccer coaches, ex-judges, clergy, and authors. These noble souls are expected to steer our industrial, fiscal, monetary, and legislative future. Until 2026, this country will remain without a growth-inducing economic policy. Instead, our 'captains of sport and clergy' are expected to grind out the results of policymaking while inflation waltzes with the Treasury and the Reserve Bank storms through with hawkish winds. All the while, the Democratic Alliance will persist with its courtroom battles dressed up as a moral crusade, trying to undo the very legislative frameworks that remain the ANC's only family silver after 31 years in power. Laws that were written by men and women who understood the demands of our Constitution, the need 'to heal' and the imperative 'to redress'. And these are the very words the DA finds offensive: heal and redress. If that's not an emergency, I am at a loss. Comrade Leadership, why deploy 31 innocent souls when you already command a Cabinet twice that size? This isn't a participatory democracy; it's a bureaucratic iceberg — 90% protocol, 10% purpose, masking a freeze on real policy action. The absurdity is staggering. Policy inertia and the endless punting of cans down the road of conventions won't win votes, nor will it heal the wounds of the present — let alone those of the past.
