The White House Meeting: Tale of Two Inconvenient Truths
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his US counterpart Donald Trump with their respective delegations before their meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday May 21, 2025.
Ashraf Patel
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics! was Winston Churchill's famous response to one of his major political challenges. This statement certainly rang true as Trump and Ramaphosa each provided us with a spectacle of different versions of reality. Trump's bombastic statements on white farm murders generously referenced fake news and disinformation. Ramaphosa's narratives -although more suave were peppered with more sophisticated inconvenient truths of another kind.
Team Ramaphosa's US visit came amidst the backdrop of South Africa's rapid declining role and prestige, in Africa a declining economy, the Budget 3.0 debacle, a low GDP, highest unemployment in its debut G20 Africa year.
Ramaphosa graciously thanked President Trump for his donation of 150 respirators to South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. More concerning is that Ramaphosa did not even raise the Covid nationalism of the US which left Africans at the bottom of the global health pyramid.
In fact neither Ramaphosa or Trump even appreciated that our own CSIR were developing its own homegrown respiratory technology and we had the local innovation capacity without needing US 'donations.'
For the record Covid vaccine hoarding was the US (under Trump) and EU policy for the first year, and most African nations were provided free vaccines by China (Sinovac) and Russia (Sputnik). In addition, there was real R&D cooperation within the G77 continues to open up possibilities for vaccine self-reliance. The BRICS Covid vaccine platform with its technology transfer model as recommended by the WHO and the UN was an example of South-South solidarity in action.
In a 2024 landmark court ruling brought by the Health Justice Initiative, the Pretoria High Court ordered the release of the Covid procurement agreement. They found that South African DoH was bullied by pharma corporations and overpaid a whopping R7 Billion for vaccines. So, in net terms, despite the US government, under Trump practised Covid nationalism, its Pharma corporations J&J, Pfizer et al made super profits in the Covid procurement program and still overcharged by billions.
The irony is not lost that because of Covid loans and PPE corruption, the South African taxpayer today bears the brunt through the Budget 3.0 debacle and austerity. And yet Ramaphosa thanked Trump for 150 respirators.
President Ramaphosa's conversation then proceeded to discuss 'the role of the DRC peace process'. Here again, a series of half-truths emerges.
South African taxpayers have for 'several years invested in the DRC'. While purporting to be a peacemaker at a substantial cost of R2 billion per annum, South Africa was not an honest broker but acted on behalf of one part of the conflict, the DRC government. Hence the conflict with Rwanda et al and our subsequent embarrassing losses. Much of the heavy lifting and loss of soldiers and losses borne by the South African state and society, including a defence bill of R 1.5 billion per annum.
After an embarrassing withdrawal and years of involvement South Africa withdrew. In this milieu, the wily US negotiation team managed to seal a substantive critical minerals agreement with the DRC in March 2025. thus short-circuiting South Africa and other nations. Again, this comes off South Africa losing prestige in Africa and the AU and will mean having no role in post-construction or mediation efforts of the DRC, Sudan etc, while the US get first-tier access in the great critical minerals world. South Africa is rapidly losing its role as a trusted mediator in Africa.
If South Africa's core G20 theme is 'Solidarity' then Team SA fell woefully short. In that moment when Trump boldly lectured Ramaphosa and Team SA on preserving White lives and their welfare, Ramaphosa did not even mention the need for Black Lives Matter.
As the Malema video played out, Ramaphosa had a key moment to raise the issue. But chose not to even raise an iota of concern for the dire conditions of Black life in America- from police brutality to deepening racial inequality, and a clampdown on freedom of expression, even though Solidarity is a signature theme of G20 in 2025 and yet Ramaphosa instead pleaded with Trump 'to accept the G20 invitation and take the baton for 2026'
The big winner of the Oval Office meeting of course was Minister John Steenhuisen and Agriculture SA and private property classes. In just one meeting, they managed to escalate 'farm murders ' as the number one issue for US-SA relations, and now have free reign - and a potent diplomatic stick to whip ANC and the majority. Steenhuisen thus becomes de facto the real chief whip of the GNU going forward.
In preparation for the meeting, Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau's new trade tariff offer – promising ever more concessions will deepen unemployment and de-industrialisation. While Ramaphosa was cordial, calm and diplomatic, his conversation narrative was compromising.
Cosatu's Zingiswa Losi's statement, though commendable on crime affecting all communities and especially black working class and women, was generally naïve on the trade concessions that SA had made which would inevitably affect her constituency labour the most.
Again, South Africa has homegrown technology and the capacity to fight crime and address the NDP 2030. It is quite ironic that the CSIR presented its technology capability to the entire South African Cabinet a few weeks ago to much awe and admiration. From COVID respirators to climate tech, to drone technology to Cybercrime and a 4IR centre whose mandate is to address all the challenges facing the country. It even has space technology and fit-for-purpose satellite capacity to address South Africa's climate change, crime, education and connectivity challenges. Why beg Elon Musk and Starlink?
Ramaphosa and Losi as trade union leaders fall into what scholars call the 'pitfalls of national consciousness trap; in that, even though South Africa as a nation-state has the technological resources, and capacity to provide for itself, this 7th administration leadership continues to beg for solutions, direction and agency from the North, at great cost. Yet development cooperation in the Global South can assist with all these challenges and in a genuine fair trade and technology transfer model in a win-win solidarity model.
We are thus outsourcing our trade, economy technology, and sovereignty in an era when Multipolarity and multilateralism are a new reality. The Oval Office meeting was akin to the famed 'green room negotiations' at the WTO of yesteryear, where African nations were strongarmed and bullied into making concessions and these became unfair agreements that have to live with for years.
Many years from now South African and global scholars will still debate the Ramaphosa Oval Office meeting as a turning point in capitulation and the cementing our role as a sub imperial state.
* Ashraf Patel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue, UNISA.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
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