Ronald Lamola is no stranger to staring down a formidable foe.
Ten years ago, he staged a one-man protest against then president Jacob Zuma, standing alone in the Tshwane heat outside the St George’s Hotel where a high-profile meeting of the ANC national executive committee was under way. He was holding a placard with the words “Zuma must go”, urging delegates to “save the soul of the ANC”.
Lamola’s stance was not new — since 2012 he had consistently opposed Zuma’s presence in the Union Buildings. For a long time he was a lone voice against a powerful opponent.
Now, as minister of international relations & co-operation, Lamola faces higher stakes and a more formidable opponent: a global power awash with titanic contradictions, backing a well-funded local disinformation campaign punting a narrative of white genocide in South Africa. It’s created an impasse almost impossible to deal with.
As the dust settles on the latest round in Pretoria’s running battle with the Trump administration — in which South Africa démarched US ambassador Leo Brent Bozell for a third time and US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced a new category of visa restrictions on South African politicians — Lamola reflects on the standoff with one of the country’s most important economic partners.
“Diplomats cannot get tired of talking. It’s our job to talk. It’s like an accountant saying they’re tired of counting money. An accountant can’t be tired of counting money,” he tells the FM. “We remain open to engagements, to dialogue, and the ball will be in the US’s court.”
Sticking points
At the centre of the acrimony are Washington’s “five asks” — pressure points it wants South Africa to move on. The most contentious concerns broad-based BEE, a policy currently undergoing an intensive two-phase review by the trade, industry & competition department.
Lamola says US companies have used equity equivalents from the outset — it was a concept negotiated with companies such as Microsoft early in the life of the legislation.
“When we speak about equity equivalents, this was an invention of US companies in the South African economy. Their influence has been enormous in our economy, including in terms of finding innovation to resolve impasses.
“We have been able to resolve these impasses through dialogue, through engagements, which continue to happen, and as I speak to you now, the US companies have got no problem with BEE and its equivalent; hence, they continue to invest,” Lamola says.
Other demands from the Trump administration include that the Kill the Boer struggle song be outlawed, that legislation to expropriate land without compensation be scrapped and that South Africa end its friendships with countries such as Iran.
Lamola says South Africa has made concessions to the US over its demands — as far as it can. The ANC and the government discourage the singing of Kill the Boer, but the Constitutional Court declared that it does not constitute hate speech and the government cannot override a ruling from the highest court.
“We have been very clear on the Expropriation Act. It is in front of our courts, and in South Africa the independence of the judiciary cannot be doubted … The matter will be resolved on the facts and the law.”
More broadly, Lamola says the differences with the Trump administration are ideological, particularly the MAGA movement’s “race-based white supremacist views”.
This ideological stance is exploited by South Africans who push the narrative of a white genocide — the Lex Libertas movement planted 3,000 crosses on the National Mall in Washington during Lamola’s visit, to symbolise the killing of white farmers — another sticking point with the US.
Official statistics indicate that murders in rural areas have reached crisis proportions, but both black and white citizens are victims.
Beyond the noise
Lamola is under no illusion that the relationship with the US has worsened, but on the whole, he seems sanguine. He’s not alone in this — many analysts argue that it is essential to separate political noise from the true sentiment among key players in the US.
This is illustrated, he says, by “the people-to-people relations, the economic ties between the two countries … their [Americans’] continuous visits to South Africa. Most of them come here for a number of things, including tourism … from the recent stats, the US continues to lead in that regard.”
He adds: “Most of them really know and understand South Africa and they want to see people-to-people relations strengthened.”
He tells the FM that there is notable interest in South Africa from US companies. “On critical minerals, six of the critical minerals they need, including platinum … we have it here in South Africa, and US companies are participating in our mineral sector, in our economy … It’s not just in the mineral sector; it is in the technology and the ICT sector.”
Signal Risk director Ronak Gopaldas echoes Lamola’s sentiments that the political noise does not match sentiment on the ground.
“A lot of the noise surrounding [the] bilateral relations can be attributed to optics, as the underlying substantive basis for these ties remains surprisingly durable and resilient … commercial ties have in fact continued to strengthen, despite growing political strains,” he tells the FM.
“South Africa’s comparatively sophisticated financial market, infrastructure, human capital and reserves of critical minerals, most notably platinum group metals, provide the necessary ballast for continued US economic engagement, and the size of the US’s consumer market and global technological leadership similarly provide the grounding for continued South African economic engagement.”
In March, political analyst JP Landman wrote that despite the political “deadlock”, more than 500 US companies are operating in South Africa — and more are investing. “As in the case of exports, individual companies are making decisions that work for them,” he wrote.
Hard row to plough
Agriculturally, things look more dicey. Two weeks ago, Landman wrote that farm exports to the US plunged 3% in the first half of 2025, by 11% in the third quarter and a whopping 39% in the fourth quarter. (US President Donald Trump’s tariffs took full effect from August 2025.)
Still, it’s not all bad for South Africa: overall agricultural exports are up 10%, with new consignments to Africa, the EU and the Brics+ countries. Lamola says Africa now accounts for the bulk of South Africa’s agricultural exports.
Which is not to say South Africa can sit back and relax. The US is yet to consider the country’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act, which is set to expire at the end of December, rendering the next three months particularly precarious for South Africa.
There’s also the matter of the G20 summit in the US in December, to which South Africa has not been invited.
“We have raised our view that we remain a founding member and we remain ready to attend if we are invited by the hosts,” Lamola says, adding: “What we said we will not do is to barge into the meeting and arrive there without any invitation … We are a member of the G20, a founding member for that matter, so it is correct that the other countries are raising this issue.”
Whether they have any success will largely be up to the vagaries of Trump and his administration.
For Lamola, who is among the younger generation of ANC leaders touted as a potential party president, navigating the high-stakes Trump minefield will be an acid test.
Marrian is a political analyst at the Bureau for Economic Research
