International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola believes that not having an ambassador in the United States has had no bearing on tariff negotiations with Washington.
The minister was in conversation with broadcaster Clement Manyathela during the Friedrich Naumann Freedom Dialogue on Thursday afternoon in Johannesburg, when he reiterated that the president is working on nominating a candidate.
“From our perspective the issue of the ambassador is to divert from what we have to deal with; there is a framework agreement that we submitted, and then there must be an outcome of whether the tariffs can be changed or not. The rest of the other issues, in our view, are kind of cheap political point-scoring from our domestic stakeholders who have been going to Washington to undermine the work of our government,” he said.
Hefty tariffs
The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has been seized with negotiations after the US imposed 30% tariffs. South Africa is one of the nations which have been slapped with these steep tariffs, which will have dire consequences for local citrus growers, wine producers, and mining companies.
Lamola, however, reminded attendees that the process of appointing a new ambassador would be long and requires the necessary vetting from the South African government.
“The point I am raising is that it is immaterial, and the president is aware that this is an important issue, and I believe that soon he will announce a nomination. With our internal processes and also processes in the US, even now we would not have concluded the process of appointing an ambassador,” he said.
He also used the platform to allay fears that the country has no representation in the US, as he tried to point out that there are other officials who are still based in Washington.
Ebrahim Rasool was expelled as South Africa’s ambassador to the United States in March after comments he made about the Trump administration in a dialogue. This was his second posting as an ambassador to the United States.
Since then, Pretoria has formed a special envoy led by Mcebisi Jonas, which has not yet started its work.
Regarding the participation of the US at the G20 summit which will be hosted in Johannesburg later on this year, Lamola says the invitation is still open for US President Donald Trump to attend.
“The US is the founder of the G20, they have an important role to play, but it is South Africa’s position that they are invited to participate in the G20 in whatever format. It is either President Trump who comes, or he sends whoever.
“If they do not come, we will have to deal with the consequences because the G20 is a consensus-based organisation. So, what happens to the declaration? It would be good to have a leader’s declaration because it is happening on South African soil,” he said.
Trump recently expressed that he would probably not attend the summit due to the country’s “very bad policies”.
