“With a more transactional administration in the White House, South Africa’s leaning into its desire to be held as a moral superpower is not carrying much purpose – at least not in Washington. The South African government should not assume that a possible future change in US administration will ‘cure’ SA-US relations.”

Chris Hattingh from the Centre for Risk Analysis (CRA), a business management consulting firm, shared this sentiment.

Relations between South Africa and the United States of America (US) are under a lot of pressure amid growing tensions over the country’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) case, the halting of PEPFAR (President Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) funding, misinformation on farm murders and land expropriation, but also the expulsion of former ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.

The latest in growing tensions saw Rasool - who previously served as SA ambassador to the US during the Barack Obama administration between 2010 and 2015 - expelled from the US for remarks made during a webinar held by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra). The theme was 'Implications of changes in US administrations for SA and Africa'.

Upon his return to the country, Rasool explained that his remarks were to South African intelligentsia, intellectuals, political leaders, and others to alert them to a change of tradition in the United States, and seeing that the old way of doing business with the US was not going to work.

“It is not the US of Obama, it is not the US of Clinton, it is a different US and therefore our language must change. Not only to transactionality but also a language that can penetrate a group that has clearly identified a fringe white community in South Africa as their constituency surrounded by a white diaspora in the White House.

“That is what we are up against… and so there is nothing I will say there that I would not say elsewhere, so I would stand by my analysis because we were analysing a political phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a government, so I stand by that,” Rasool said.

Despite the friction caused by his removal and the difference in stances on certain issues, Rasool remained resolute in the idea that South Africa should continue efforts to rescue the relationship with the US.

“We must reset the relationship with America because our relationship with America (has been) over 50 years has not always been with the White House. It has sometimes been with Congress and it has always been with the people of the United States of America.

“We have this relationship that we must reset, and we must rebuild,” Rasool said.