LUCKY MATHEBULA: The C-suite is an instrument of foreign policy

The tariff wars have caused chaos in global trade and might have rewritten how smart democracies deal with geopolitics. 

The new foreign policy theorems of transactional international relations are starting to procure private sector C-suites as the global trade-facing brigades for countries to define trade and diplomatic ties. C-suites are the upper echelons of corporate and national executives whose day-to-day activities and decisions make or break the growth and competitiveness of nations.

The appointment of Mcebisi Jonas, one of SA’s comprehensively bred C-suite executives, is, in conceptual terms, one in a string of innovative appointments and interventions by President Cyril Ramaphosa to enhance the overall capability of the state to respond to challenges such as the one developing between SA and the US. This act highlights the crucial role of the private sector in shaping international trade. 

The risk of the unfolding antagonism towards SA galvanising bipartisan support in the US and becoming a foreign policy position in the foreseeable future calls for nonconventional interventions. Deep private sector envoys carry transactional credibility as opposed to the traditional ideological liabilities political executives might be carrying.

There might be displeasure or reservations about Jonas’ suitability or otherwise. Still, getting those at the touchpoints where it matters in geopolitics and international trade should be welcomed. His ilk and practice community are in constant contact with the coalface of trade relations, and with their counterparts in foreign lands, they co-create global futures.

The Group of 20 (G20) conversations and trade protocols that will be signed when the ultimate summit takes place are in the domain of private sector C-suites from the different democracies. Evidently, since being invited, the institutional memory of SA’s G20 involvement rests, and arguably its operational authority vests, in the C-suites. Special envoys of various G20 countries have landed on our shores, and the transaction-intensive G20 negotiations are threading new, multilaterally beneficial responses to the new geopolitical order.

The rise of trade-centric international relations, a function of the growing appetite for markets by countries producing goods and services, is rewriting the diplomatic relations playbook. This new normative framework is based on the bottom-line considerations that guide private sector decision-making. Power is no longer solely about a nation’s self-perception and national identity, but also about its position in the balance of trade with other nations. The global pecking order is increasingly determined by productivity and trade indices, key components of the growing and important soft power geopolitics, making hard power less relevant.

One of the dividends of a globalised world and value chain-driven international trade is that corporations have increasingly become the objects and instruments of foreign policy.

Consider the protection and promotion of national sovereignty and constitutional order, the wellbeing, safety and prosperity of citizens, and a better world and Africa as part of the strategic canvas of SA corporations in how they interact with their counterparts while being bottom-line facing.

Business conducted as a matter of national interest is fast becoming an area of scholarly and strategic interest to private corporations.

Inarguably, the convergence of national and private sector bottom-line interests, driven by skin-in-the-game inspired C-suites, will yield better international trade transactions than deep state or otherwise bureaucrats, incentivised by gladiatorial geopolitical considerations, offering hope for the future of trade negotiations. 

While it is prudent to have national sovereignty and government-of-the-day ideological considerations as the firmament over most public policy, the nifty dealmaking decorum of the private sector introduces transactional elegance to international trade relations. Competition in the private sector does not translate to war.

The dualisation of international relations and co-operation through the infusion of private sector C-suites in the representative architecture of diplomats is long overdue in SA.

Given the ownership demographics in the economy, those feeling the pinch of the tariff wars on both sides of the country tensions would be better suited to transact as they renegotiate trading protocols.

SA should not forget it was only when its political settlement started to make business sense that it found the required traction. The ping-pong tariffs between the US and China are driven by market pragmatism rather than the political whims of the contending geopolitical context, and C-suites are the market.

It is inarguable that individual corporate actors, whose interests do not always align with those of their governments as they often possess an informational advantage over the public sector, drive critical trade variables such as unit price determination. Given that price is an expression of all value inputs in a product, including national pride, geopolitical positioning and market reconfigurations, C-suites conclude transactions with niftiness scarcely found in the public sector, and acutely in the public service. 

The Trump administration, with all its discontents, has lifted the veil of where true international relations happen: the corporate boardrooms.

It is the brazen way that Trump has made international agreements amount to deal-making that has made nations see them conducted in the proverbial city hall. Though still low, the foreign policy literacy of the SA “person-in-the-street” is heightened.

The public service function is upended in global trade and co-operation. Through the foregrounding of C-Suites, Jonas in particular, state capability is extended, potentially without the permission of public service authorities and scholars. 

Though Jonas’ appointment is not new, given that President Cyril Ramaphosa served in the Commonwealth Business Council while he was in his “proverbial deployment”, it is a resurgence of SA and significantly new political establishment C-suite influence on international trade and co-operation.

This time, it is open. It is an opportunity to mainstream what the various trading associations have been operating outside the purview of many into the national economic transformation dialogue. In middle-class circles, a national economic dialogue is going on. C-Suites with no interests in politics are gathering courage to start questioning policy decisions.

For the SA government, establishing regular consultations with the private sector, its C-Suites in particular, providing financial support for industry expertise and enhancing economic intelligence would be constructive initial steps.

More fundamentally, policymakers must pledge to adopt a significantly different mindset regarding the private sector. Disparaging labels should be abandoned. The domains of influence are naturally separate. In a context where meritorious public service commissioning is gaining traction, templates of cadre deployment are fracturing, and coalition governments are a growing reality, the Mcebisi appointment phenomenon might be redefining the politics of deep-state configuration. 

Once more, necessity spurred pragmatism. The Ramaphosa leadership cohort responded more to posterity than to the exigencies of the now. It would be prudent to take the same approach to mending the fragile SA-Israeli relations. A special envoy from the private sector should be considered for deployment to Israel. The US-SA relations are a dimension of the SA-Israeli relations. 

Dealing with the US and Israel is akin to the paradox of inhaling and exhaling to keep living. As you inhale oxygen, carbon dioxide must be exhaled, and yet you cannot do one to the exclusion of the other; the consequence is death.

• Dr Mathebula is the head of faculty people management at The DaVinci Institute and executive chair of the Thinc Foundation.