GERHARD ERASMUS: SA wants to conclude deals with Trump — how, when and about what?
Ramaphosa’s U-turn reflects realism but also the dearth of alternatives
President Cyril Ramaphosa is reported to have said at an event hosted for investors in Johannesburg on February 26 that “we’ve got to make a deal [with US President Donald Trump] of one sort or another, on trade issues, on diplomatic issues, on political issues, a whole span of issues.”
A day later came the announcement that funding for SA under the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar, launched in 2003) has been stopped. The local reaction was that the “whole region is now in deep trouble”, and unless the SA government filled the gap more than 500,000 additional deaths could be recorded over the next decade...
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