Sydney Mufamadi’s team is likely to focus its efforts on trying to ensure that South Africa is not expelled from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), a US law that gives duty- and quota-free access to the US market for selected African countries, including South Africa. The law is due to be extended or terminated in 2025, and there are growing concerns SA could be ejected then – or even before.
Mufamadi, with Ramaphosa’s legal adviser Nokukhanya Jele, and deputy minister of international relations and cooperation Alvin Botes, are meeting their administration “counterparts” as well as congressional leaders, probably including the Congressional Black Caucus, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed to Daily Maverick.
However, US sources have said there is a growing concern in the US, particularly in Congress, about SA’s failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a perception that SA is drifting further into the Russia-China camp at a time when Washington’s relations with those two countries are becoming more tense and competitive.
These sources had said that these concerns were crystallising around SA’s participation in Agoa, which facilitated an extra $3-billion of SA exports to the US last year, much of it in manufacturing and other value-added goods which help create jobs in SA.
It would be particularly offensive to these congressional leaders to visit SA if Pretoria had just allowed Putin to visit the country in defiance of a request from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to SA to arrest and surrender the Russian leader, the sources said. The ICC has indicted him and issued a warrant for his arrest for the alleged war crime of abducting Ukrainian children and deporting them to Russia.
Recently, Republican members of the US House of Representatives – which is now controlled by the Republicans – drafted a resolution condemning SA’s ever-closer ties with Russia and China, and called on the US administration to review US relations with South Africa, and in particular, the benefits which SA derives from Agoa.
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