Photograph Source: Pipodesign Philipp P Egli – CC BY 3.0
South African politics has been in turmoil over the past fortnight after President Trump issued an Executive Order against our government for its alleged mistreatment of citizens of Afrikaner descent and the harm it has supposedly caused American foreign policy interests by taking ally Israel to the International Court of Justice on genocide charges. This punitive action and the possibility that more could follow has caused many analysts and pundits to scramble to come up with proposals which will presumably provide the country a measure of protection from Pres. Trump’s wrath.
The most obvious way government could do so is by changing tack on the issues which have reportedly raised his ire. For a number of reasons, the South African government is unlikely to be able to do so without risking serious damage to its foreign policy credibility and stoking sociopolitical instability domestically. In terms of its foreign policy, given its longstanding anti-colonial and pro-Palestinian stance and the momentum for reaching a just and lasting solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict which the lawsuit it launched and other countries have subsequently joined has created, reversing its position will harm its stature internationally. Likewise, revoking the long-debated Expropriation without Compensation Act under pressure from an outside power even before having it tested in our courts threatens sociopolitical stability as it might be popularly perceived as government spurning an important tool to redress enduring racial inequality in a deeply unequal society, notwithstanding the opinion shared among leading legal scholars that the actual power this act grants the South African government to usurp individuals’ property rights is far more limited than that which critics of this legislation would have the public, or at least Pres. Trump, believe. Moreover, considering Pres. Trump’s vindictive nature and the way his administration has treated firm European allies like Denmark that have generally acquiesced to previous American demands, South African policymakers will likely be skeptical about whether changing policy direction would placate Pres. Trump, more so as he is surrounded by a coterie of influential billionaires with deep links to apartheid South Africa.
Alternatively, the South African government could attempt to appease Pres. Trump by playing on his businessman’s instincts and seeking out a deal where the country could transact with the United States (US) on so unequal a basis it could effectively serve as cover for paying the US off. It could do so, for example, by entering into a commercial deal in an area of strategic interest to the US on terms that are highly favourable to the US. Speculatively, given the commercial nuclear interests that have been posited as driving Pres. Trump’s targeting of South Africa, a prime area where it could do so is South Africa’s nuclear energy sector.
Entering into a nuclear deal with the US on its terms, however, is likely to have grave ramifications for SA’s sovereignty and digital destiny while offering little guarantee that doing so would satiate US demands considering the zero-sum economic trade model to which the current US administration appears to subscribe and the ideological model of a hollowed-out state where private mega-corporations own and operate the technological and energy infrastructure that is required to advance and develop the rapidly growing Artificial Intelligence industry and are indemnified from any liability for their actions to which the Big Tech entrepreneurs who constitute Pres. Trump’s inner circle aspire. Under such conditions, fears are likely to be heightened that according these business moguls who have the ear of a belligerent foreign leader the leading role in the country’s nuclear energy sector and data technology infrastructure would be akin to placing the country’s economic development trajectory in the hands of a hostile entity and relegating the country to the status of a technological resource colony.
In addition, folding to US pressure is likely to diminish the government’s standing both domestically and within BRICS. As a result, it is not unrealistic to expect that it would sharpen factional divisions within an already fractured African National Congress, still South Africa’s foremost political party albeit though its support is falling precipitously, and possibly lead to the collapse of the Government of National Unity (GNU) depending on the political parties the faction within the ANC that wins this internecine battle chooses to govern with.
Rushing into a deal with BRICS allies Russia, which has long been favoured to secure any nuclear deal, or new member Iran, as has been reported in many local and international publications, to protect themselves from Pres. Trump’s wrath is also unlikely to offer much insurance given the danger of further sanctions from the US if it does and the minimal trade and economic ties between SA and these countries. This leaves BRICS ally and main trading partner China. Although a viable candidate, fears of a Chinese debt trap, lingering suspicions of Chinese interests because of past acts of espionage which China has been accused of committing against our nuclear installations and the fact that China has its hands full undertaking a massive rollout of nuclear power stations domestically, are likely to make South African policymakers reluctant to partner with China in the nuclear industry.
The preceding analyses is incomplete and is apt to under-estimate the magnitude of the effect which securing a deal with a BRICS country, or the US for that matter, could potentially have on our domestic politics as it overlooks the existence of domestic groups which have their own nuclear agendas, e.g. Afriforum, the Afrikaner lobby group which reportedly convinced Pres. Trump of the need to act on behalf of the Afrikaner minority that is allegedly being persecuted, and does not factor into its calculations the frailty of our current GNU, which is already showing signs of strain. It also downplays the difficulties government will encounter if it tries to push through a decision to expand nuclear power capacity because of the popular opposition this controversial decision provokes locally.
Although the aforementioned scenarios might well be incomplete, they provide sufficient grounds upon which to conclude that government could be faced with an even greater predicament should it attempt to leverage a nuclear deal to extricate itself from the present dilemma. Stemming from this conclusion, it would appear to be reasonable if government opted to forego nuclear power altogether. Although, at face value, a sensible course of action, this is unlikely to be considered a feasible option by wary policymakers mindful of the pervasiveness of the natural resource chauvinism which animates domestic political discourse and the strength of the nuclear lobby; broadly defined. For Pres. Ramaphosa in particular, he risks the prospect of losing political face and confirming unkind assessments of his character as being weak and indecisive if he opts not to do anything when it comes to pursuing the expansion of nuclear power. If so, one could reasonably surmise that it would only be a matter of time before he is removed from office.
Fortunately, there is a political way for the government to counter Pres. Trump’s threat without ensnaring itself in either of these scenarios. It could do so by subjecting its nuclear plans to a popular referendum. Calling for a referendum on nuclear power provides the South African government with a number of political benefits. Firstly, it would send a strong signal to domestic critics and their foreign supporters that it will not be bullied and that it intends to conduct its nuclear dealings in an open and transparent manner guided by what all citizens believe to be in their best interests; not those of foreign oligarchs, narrow domestic interest groups or powerful foreign governments.
More crucial than the political signal it sends is the time it would buy South African diplomats to explore diplomatic avenues to mend the rift between SA and the US and the time it would grant South African policymakers to identify and take the necessary steps to inure the country from adverse actions by an increasingly erratic US. To maximise the time a referendum could buy, government could set the date for a referendum during the latter part of Pres. Trump’s term. A secondary benefit of holding it later in his tenure rather than sooner is that the GNU would also be nearing the end of its term by then. As such, any negative political consequences caused by the outcome of the referendum in the event the GNU collapsed would be minimised. On the economic front, postponing a nuclear decision and avoiding the fallout associated therewith would afford South Africans time to explore ways to reduce their dependency on the US by attempting to find new markets for their products or budgeting for further cuts in US aid. Time would also afford politicians leeway to explore alternate public works projects that are non-exclusive, in that they enable the country to partner with both Western and BRICS allies, and able to serve as national flagship projects that unite rather than divide the country, at least not as much as the controversial decision to expand nuclear power capacity is likely to. Toward this end, this author has previously floated the idea of incorporating a new national capital district in the centrally located Orange Free State province citing the potential economic and nation-building benefits such a construction project could provide.
Considering the potential benefits described above, it is argued that a referendum on nuclear power offers the South African government not only the means to weather the current diplomatic storm but an opportunity to craft a vision for the country that is diametrically opposite to the supremacism implicit in the threat Pres. Trump issued to the South African government in his Executive Order that demands it cave to US pressure or else.
