What South Africa's new unity gov't means for US relations – Responsible Statecraft

One of the ANC's new major coalition partners is not as staunchly opposed to Israel's policy in Gaza
On May 29, South Africans went to the polls in one of this year’s most anticipated elections. In an outcome that shook the country’s political system, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since Nelson Mandela became the country’s president following the fall of apartheid, lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since taking power in 1994.
As a result, the ANC has been forced to form a coalition with rival parties. It has forged a political alliance with the center-right, pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the right-wing Patriotic Alliance (PA), and a small party called GOOD, which holds a single seat in parliament. Collectively, this coalition, which could still grow as the ANC continues to negotiate with other parties to expand its unity government, accounts for 68% of the seats in the country’s national parliament, which convenes in Cape Town. Leaning on its newly formed coalition, the ANC successfully reelected Cyril Ramaphosa as the country’s president on June 14.
The ANC’s poor showing in the parliamentary election is largely the result of frustrated voters responding to the party’s inability to improve the country’s severe economic challenges and reduce widespread wealth inequality, whose roots date back to apartheid. These issues have been aggravated by the ANC’s self-admitted corruption, which has handcuffed its ability to respond to South Africa’s economic issues and undermined the credibility of its commitment to improving the welfare of the the great majority of the country’s 60 million people.
Under the ANC, South Africa’s foreign policy has made global headlines in recent months. In December, it brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — the U.N.’s legal body charged with resolving international disputes between countries — accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in its war in Gaza.
The center-right DA, which was then the ANC’s main opposition party, initially opposed the ANC’s decision to bring the case. The DA has since, however, said that it will abide by the ICJ’s decision and has condemned Israel’s violence in Gaza. Despite this, the DA remains unwilling to call Israel’s conduct a genocide, thus suggesting that it remains opposed to the ANC’s case and decision to take it to the ICJ.
The ICJ case has also strained relations with the United States. While Pretoria has long been one of the world’s most vocal proponents of the rights of Palestinians, Washington has been Israel’s strongest international supporter and supplier of weapons. In response to South Africa’s ICJ case, in February, several members of the U.S. Congress joined in proposing a bill that urged a “full review” of Washington’s relations with South Africa.
The DA has also been vocally skeptical of the country’s participation in an expanding BRICS, an organization originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and which has recently added several new members and seeks to act as an alternative to Western-based international forums. South Africa has used BRICS to enhance its influence globally in a world dominated by institutions built by the West after World War II.
As the ANC’s largest coalition partner, the DA will likely have a greater say in the government’s domestic and foreign policy moving forward. But given that the ANC, which has led South Africa’s case at the ICJ, still holds the presidency and will likely continue to run the country’s foreign ministry, the DA is unlikely to be able to substantially alter South Africa’s foreign policy, though it might attempt to use foreign policy as a bargaining tool in debates on the ANC’s other efforts in parliament.
Neither the IFP nor the PA — two smaller coalition partners — focused much on foreign policy while campaigning, instead emphasizing the need for the government to shift domestic policy to promote economic growth and reduce inequality. Neither party, for example, mentioned foreign policy in their respective manifestos, although PA leadership has openly questioned South Africa’s support for Palestine.
Two parties that performed well in May’s election but have stated that they will not join the unity government are the left-wing uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the communist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Both parties are staunchly anti-West and see the international system, from the U.N. to international legal bodies such as the ICJ and the International Criminal Court, as having been built to serve Western interests at the expense of poorer Global South states. The MK, which is headed by former South African President Jacob Zuma, is widely seen as being more supportive of South Africa building ties with Russia than with the United States.
But Pretoria’s long-term foreign policy of non-alignment — by which the country avoids forming a full-fledged alliance or even close security partnerships with Western states, Russia, or China, and instead chooses to support whatever policies promote its own interests — is unlikely to change following the election.
Ziyanda Stuurman, a senior analyst specializing in southern Africa for the Eurasia Group, told RS that “foreign policy is likely to be a second- or third-order priority for the new … unity government.” Stuurman said that “all of the parties to the coalition have divergent foreign policy positions, (on Russia-Ukraine, the government's BRICS alliance ties, and the Israel-Hamas conflict) — and given the very sensitive balance that the alliance will have to maintain going forward — foreign policy issues will likely be dealt with on a case by case basis as opposed to forming part of the most crucial policy decisions going forward.”
She adds that the country’s current foreign minister, Nelendi Pandor, will likely continue in the role. If not, then the ANC’s Second Deputy Secretary-General Maropene Ramokgopa is likely to be her successor. Ultimately, Stuurman says that “the South African government's foreign policy positions are unlikely to significantly change in the coming months.”
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and deputy president Paul Mashatile attend a special African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Cape Town, South Africa June 13, 2024. REUTERS/Nic Bothma
Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-NY) speaks during a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hosts a roundtable with families of Americans held hostage by Hamas since October 7, 2023. (Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto)NO USE FRANCE
The Washington Post this morning has reported that the top Democrats on the Armed Services Committees — Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), and Senator Ben Cardin (Md.) — have finally given their nod on the biggest arms sale to Israel since Oct. 7.
In fact, after holding it up for months they gave their approval "weeks ago." Now Congress will be formally notified.
The package includes 50 F-15s that won't arrive in Israel for years, along with surface-to-air missiles and Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which retrofit unguided bombs with precision guidance, according to the paper. The package is worth $18 billion.
The two Democrats had been resistant to give their nods (the ranking Republicans gave their approval months ago) due in part to the continued blocking of aid in the strip. Meeks, according to the Post, told CNN in April that “I don’t want the kinds of weapons that Israel has to be utilized to have more deaths…I want to make sure that humanitarian aid gets in. I don’t want people starving to death, and I want Hamas to release the hostages. And I want a two-state solution.”

What changed his mind is a mystery as 1) there is less aid getting into Gaza than ever, and 2) U.S. weapons have been used in several mass casualty events on the ground in recent weeks as Israel has pushed into Rafah and has been bombarding central and southern Gaza, obliterating homes, shelters, and targeting refugee encampments for the last month.
But we know there is enormous pressure on lawmakers who want the Biden administration to use its leverage — including $4 billion a year in military aid to pay for such weapons — to stop the civilian carnage Republicans have said that the administration is not giving the Israelis more missiles and ammo fast enough, calling it a "reprehensible" betrayal. Efforts to condition further aid have fallen largely by the wayside.
The administration has "paused" the transfer of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs due to recent events but are already consider "unpausing." The House has already passed a bill punishing the administration for holding back the weapons in the first place.
According to the Post, Meeks told the paper that he has been in “close touch” with the White House and “repeatedly urged the administration to continue pushing Israel to make significant and concrete improvements on all fronts when it comes to humanitarian efforts and limiting civilian casualties.” Cardin's office, for its part, said the package had gone through the "regular review processes."
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (C) attends a joint press conference during the Peace Summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland on June 16, 2024.( The Yomiuri Shimbun via REUTERS )
Key Global South middle powers India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates declined to sign the joint communique at a summit in Switzerland on resolving the Ukraine war. (Another key middle power Brazil had decided to attend only as an observer.)
These Global South middle powers did not endorse the communique despite the text’s recitation of the importance of “sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity” and food security, both of which are key points of concern and consensus across developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Some of these states have previously voted for U.S.-backed resolutions in the U.N. General Assembly that criticized the violations of territorial integrity by Russia and also cited food security.
These middle powers are skeptical that a summit that excluded Russia, the biggest combatant in the conflict, could achieve a peace deal to end the war. The Indian representative at the summit explained his country’s stance by stating that “only those options acceptable to both parties can lead to abiding peace.” Many of these powers, including India, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, also have strong economic and/or security relations with Russia, which they will not easily put at risk.
U.S. and Western actions in the Middle East and elsewhere have done serious harm to the task of holding Moscow to account in what was clearly an illegal invasion of Ukraine. Many in the Global South are keenly aware of the double standards at work, and do not wish to be used instrumentally to settle Western scores with Russia.
The gap between the United States and key Global South states will likely persist unless Washington and its allies make a major course correction on two fronts. The first is to address serious deficits and violations in their vaunted “rules-based order” that will make American messaging more credible. The contrasts between the U.S. approach to transgressions of international law in Ukraine and Gaza are too glaring to wish away.
The second is to better take into account the Global South’s interests. While Washington has moved to an extent in this direction through its infrastructure and other initiatives, there is still much ground to cover to get to a more productive, non-zero sum policy toward the Global South.
Vivi Petru
Worldwide spending on nuclear weapons rose by $10.8 billion between 2022 and 2023 with 80% of the increase coming from the United States, according to a new report released on Monday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The $10.8 billion increase brings annual global spending on nuclear weapons up to $91.4 billion. From 2019 to 2023, $387 billion has been spent on nuclear weapons.
“By comparison, the World Food Programme Executive Director stated in 2021 that to end world hunger, countries could spend $40 billion per year through 2030, which is a total of $360 billion over nine years,” said the report, “Surge: 2023 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending.” ICAN notes that sum is $27 billion less than what the U.S., China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan spent on their nuclear arsenals in just five years.
ICAN points to weapons companies as profiting off the surge in spending on nukes, noting that the top 20 companies working on nuclear weapons earned more than $31 billion from their nuke related work in 2023. And “[t]here are at least $335 billion in outstanding nuclear weapons contracts to these companies, some of which continue for more than a decade,” said the report.
Honeywell International, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics topped the list of companies profiting from nuclear weapons expenditures.
That flood of public funds to private contractors was coupled by significant spending by these companies on efforts to shape the debate around government spending. The companies spent $118 million lobbying governments in the U.S. and France in 2023 and donated more than $6 million to think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons.
Lockheed Martin contributed to the most think tanks, including: Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, Chatham House, Center for a New American Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hudson Institute, and Observer Research Foundation.
The increased spending on nuclear weapons hasn’t corresponded to an increase in the absolute number of nuclear warheads, a number that has continued to decline since the end of the Cold War, but the number of nuclear weapons deployed for use with missiles and aircraft has gone up.
“While the global total of nuclear warheads continues to fall as cold war-era weapons are gradually dismantled, regrettably we continue to see year-on-year increases in the number of operational nuclear warheads,’ said Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Director Dan Smith, in a press release citing data from SIPRI’s own report on nuclear weapons, also released on Monday. “This trend seems likely to continue and probably accelerate in the coming years and is extremely concerning.”
SIPRI points to tensions over the Ukraine and Gaza wars weakening nuclear diplomacy. Last year, Russia suspended its participation in the last remaining treaty limiting Russia and U.S. strategic nuclear forces and the U.S. suspended sharing its own nuclear weapons data with Russia as required by the treaty.
SIPRI also cites Russia’s repeated threats of using nuclear weapons and the Israel-Hamas war, which upended an informal agreement between the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate tensions. That conflict has also undermined efforts to engage Israel — which has never acknowledged its nuclear weapons program — in the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction, which has contributed to an overall weakening of nuclear diplomacy.
While nuclear weapons contractors are enjoying new contracts of billions of dollars in public funds, the overall outlook for constraining the use of nuclear weapons is looking much worse.
“We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the cold war,” said Wilfred Wan, Director of SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme at the release of the new report. “It is hard to believe that barely two years have passed since the leaders of the five largest nuclear-armed states jointly reaffirmed that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’”
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©2024 Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
©2024 Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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