Re-shaping foreign policy in the Trump 2.0 era

Thabo Mbeki

AZIZ Pahad's book the Insurgent Diplomat deals with a period of four years which focused on preparing for the transition from apartheid to democracy.

A group of leading Afrikaners - academics, businesspeople, leaders in the church, and professionals - undertook a voyage of discovery, which was to talk to the ANC to find out what the ANC is, and what does it think? What is its view about the future of South Africa?

They had to discover this because they had brought themselves up on a fake notion of what the ANC was. They would ask questions like, “when we say the people shall govern, what do we mean?”, because in their understanding, we meant the ANC shall govern, that there would be an election, one election, and the ANC would win and stay in power forever.

We had to explain when we say South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, after all of these centuries of oppression by the white minority, what do we mean?

Aziz would have been very shocked if he read the executive order that was issued on the 7th of February by the President of the United States.

He spent many years explaining what the ANC stood for and what it would mean for South Africa, what that would mean for South Africa when South Africa was liberated, that you could have a false statement like that being propagated.

Aziz would have treated this as a wake-up call.

In this sense, it indicated that it was imperative, to understand the world in which we engage in foreign policy and international relations. To understand how any government could so readily accept a falsehood of that kind.

Therefore, let me ask some robust questions. 

• Does DIRCO understand the world in which it engages international relations for the people of South Africa? 
• Does it have the internal capacity to develop this understanding?
• In practice, what is done, practically, to get this understanding? 
• What is done to relate policy to that understanding?

I think these are very serious questions based on an objective understanding, and an understanding of the objective world within which policy develops, which might have explained why a falsehood like this claim about the persecution of Afrikaners, was accepted by an important government in the world.

In that context of understanding the world, let me make some remarks about the United States.

Earlier, in March, the US issued its annual threat assessment developed by the US Intelligence Community, and it is important to study and understand this as part of understanding the objective world within which we operate.

I think the legitimate question that arises is what are the implications for Africa in the context of these assessments.

So far, there is no African policy from the Trump administration.

I am saying so far there isn't such a policy, but in December 2018, during President Trump's first term, Ambassador John Bolton, who was the National Security Adviser, spoke about the Trump administration's new Africa strategy.

He said: “We have prioritized everything, developing this new Africa strategy document because we understand that lasting stability, prosperity, independence, and security on the African continent are in the national security interest of the United States."

We do not know whether the current Trump administration will persist with these positions.

It very well could be that the current administration, may take what John Bolton said on behalf of the first Trump administration, as a framework within which to formulate their Africa policies.

If that is the case, the question arises, what does Africa do, in light of that? 

Another matter which was of importance relates to the global economy, raised in the context of what the Trump administration has been saying about raising tariffs on many products. It raises a question, therefore, not only of tariffs, but of the economy.

Is the world order, the old economic order, on the way out? And where does that position us and position the African continent, if that is a reality?

Despite this changing world, it is still necessary to make an objective assessment of the power of the United States, given its prominent economic, technological, and military standing globally.

South Africa itself, of course, has been exposed to some action by the Trump administration. The challenge remains, with all these various assessments of what the Trump administration stands for, how should we relate to the US? It is not a very straightforward matter.

We are seeing the emergence of a multipolar world; the issues we've been discussing are part of that multipolarity.

We must also insist that Africa must do what is in the best interest of Africa. 

It is obvious that an important part of what is in the best interest of Africa is its correct and timely positioning in the evolving multipolar world, so that the emerging global order places our Continent in a better position to address its many challenges of the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment, silencing the guns, ensuring that the people govern and ending Africa’s international marginalisation.

The serious challenge in this regard is that there is no evidence or sign anywhere that Africa’s political and intellectual leadership is not only conscious of the need to define our Continent’s place in the emerging multipolar world but is ready to act on this urgent matter.

Given its recent performance with regard to many of Africa’s contemporary challenges, it is very doubtful that the Continental body, the African Union, would be up to this task.

This problem is compounded by the reality that over the years the spirit of Pan Africanism among our African political leadership in general has waned significantly.

It would therefore be very apposite that DIRCO should resolve to lead and present to the AU, a concrete programme Africa should follow practically to define and find its rightful place in the emerging multipolar world.

This is an edited version of Former President and Patron of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, Thabo Mbeki's, statement at the launch of the inaugural Dr Aziz Pahad Peace, Security and Human Rights Dialogue held in Pretoria on March 31, 2025. The full statement can be accessed at www.iol.co.za