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While the US can benefit from friendly relations with SA, this is only if SA is willing to be a friendly partner. Opposing Israel, downgrading Taiwan’s embassy, enabling Russia against Ukraine, being friendly with Iran and helping China gain more neocolonial footholds on the continent does not serve US interests.
By 2024 SA had a trade surplus with the US of about R36bn. It is running a trade deficit with China, which Dludlu suggests as an alternative to the US, of about $12.5bn. The US, with our preferential trade under the African Growth & Opportunity Act, is a profitable trade partner.
China dumps its cheap goods here and sees us as a potential economic vassal.
The quality of imports from the US also far outweighs that of China, not just in consumer goods but also in better quality investment and access to world-class research & development.
The US is the world superpower and has a history of helping its friends. It helped to turn Japan and South Korea into economic powerhouses. It rebuilt Europe after the scourge of Nazism and World War 2. The US helps its friends. And while it would be better to not need to rely on foreign aid, SA is not at that point yet, and needs US money.
The conditions attached to this aid are not unreasonable. The US only asks that we don’t side with its enemies, and that we don’t oppress our people. And despite Dludlu’s blinkers, the rhetoric surrounding expropriation without compensation have been dangerously racist.
That policy needs to be overturned, for the sake of positive relations with the US, but most of all for the prosperity of all South Africans.
Nicholas Woode-Smith Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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LETTER: Axe expropriation law to save US ties
I fear John Dludlu overestimates SA’s importance to the US (“A time for the president to stiffen his spine”, February 12).
While the US can benefit from friendly relations with SA, this is only if SA is willing to be a friendly partner. Opposing Israel, downgrading Taiwan’s embassy, enabling Russia against Ukraine, being friendly with Iran and helping China gain more neocolonial footholds on the continent does not serve US interests.
By 2024 SA had a trade surplus with the US of about R36bn. It is running a trade deficit with China, which Dludlu suggests as an alternative to the US, of about $12.5bn. The US, with our preferential trade under the African Growth & Opportunity Act, is a profitable trade partner.
China dumps its cheap goods here and sees us as a potential economic vassal.
The quality of imports from the US also far outweighs that of China, not just in consumer goods but also in better quality investment and access to world-class research & development.
The US is the world superpower and has a history of helping its friends. It helped to turn Japan and South Korea into economic powerhouses. It rebuilt Europe after the scourge of Nazism and World War 2. The US helps its friends. And while it would be better to not need to rely on foreign aid, SA is not at that point yet, and needs US money.
The conditions attached to this aid are not unreasonable. The US only asks that we don’t side with its enemies, and that we don’t oppress our people. And despite Dludlu’s blinkers, the rhetoric surrounding expropriation without compensation have been dangerously racist.
That policy needs to be overturned, for the sake of positive relations with the US, but most of all for the prosperity of all South Africans.
Nicholas Woode-Smith
Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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