Ramaphosa: South Africa will keep talking to US despite new visa restrictions

President Cyril Ramaphosa said South Africa will continue to engage with the United States despite new visa restrictions announced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and that Pretoria will protect its sovereignty and dignity in those discussions.

Willingness to negotiate

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the ANC Veterans League fundraising golf day at the Johannesburg Country Club in Woodmead on Monday, Ramaphosa said the government had taken note of the restrictions but remained prepared to engage with Washington.

“We are quite willing and prepared to continue engaging with the United States as we engage with all other countries in the world,”

He added that South Africa would approach challenges with other countries without compromising its sovereignty:

“Where there are challenges, we will go in with our dignity, with our sovereignty to engage with those countries without bowing our heads and treating those nations respectfully and expecting them to treat us also respectfully,”

the president said.

Trade links and ongoing talks

Ramaphosa said the United States remains an important market for South Africa and that both countries trade products they need from one another. He said this interdependence was a reason to continue negotiating to resolve relationship challenges.

“The United States is an important market for us and therefore, we are prepared to engage with them, to negotiate with them, to find a solution to the challenges that our relationship now has,”

Ramaphosa said.

He said discussions between South Africa and the US had been under way for some time, including on trade and tariff issues, and that the US had raised what he called “the so-called five issues”, to which South Africa had provided responses:

“We’ve been giving them the response on a number of them.”

On the new restrictions

Rubio announced the targeted restrictions last week against foreign nationals whom Washington says are responsible for, or complicit in, policies involving uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority groups in South Africa. The US did not name any individuals when the policy was announced.

Asked what had prompted the US move, Ramaphosa said he could not explain it:

“So I just don’t know what happened. Only they can answer and say what exactly happened,”

he said.

Looking for solutions

Ramaphosa reiterated that South Africa remained willing to negotiate with the US to resolve the challenges in the bilateral relationship:

“We also trade with them and there are certain things or products that they need from us that we also need from them,”

he said. “So that in itself should bring about the state of equilibrium. So as we deal with each other, as states that respect each other, we will find solutions.”