Washington gives the ANC government an ultimatum – choose Putin or the South African economy
13 June 2023
A formal request from a group of high-ranking congressmen to the United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, encouraging the State Department to reconsider hosting the upcoming AGOA Forum in South Africa is the clearest indication yet that patience in Washington is fast diminishing.
The ANC government has now been presented with a clear choice – denounce Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, or risk triggering thousands of job losses and tanking the economy. What South Africa does in the next few days will mean the difference between economic chaos or the preservation of what is essentially the most important trade alliance for the country.
To date, the ANC has justified their failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of a sovereign state under the auspices of ‘non-alignment’. This is intellectually dishonest given the mounting evidence that ANC are in fact not practicing their own policy. In February, on the anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, South Africa hosted joint military exercises with Russia and China. In April, a sanctioned freight aircraft was permitted to land at Waterkloof military base. In May, the Commander of the South African ground forces, Lieutenant-General Lawrence Mbatha led a delegation to Russia to discuss “issues relating to military cooperation and interaction”. Last week, the inquiry into allegations that South Africa supplied weapons to Russia in December was classified by the Presidency.
The ANC’s Russian Roulette has already had dire consequences for the economy. Last week, Formula 1 (F1) pulled the plug on hosting this prestigious event in South Africa as a result of the country’s failure to denounce Russian aggression in Ukraine. Hundreds of millions of rands worth of foreign direct investment and advertising revenue for South African firms have already been lost as a result.