Oval Office encounter casts beam of attention on critical domestic policy failures – IRR
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s encounter with US President Donald Trump has sharpened the focus on South Africa’s policy failures and their troubling implications for investor sentiment, the country’s international standing, and the lived experience of millions of citizens.
The relationship between South Africa and the United States carries immense diplomatic and economic weight. This is due not only to the trade ties between them, or each country’s geopolitical relevance, but to the fact that perceptions in Washington shape global views of South Africa’s policy credibility. In the face of structural economic weaknesses, stagnant growth, and deepening public frustration, that credibility is now in sharp decline.
The trigger for yesterday’s diplomatic exchange was President Trump’s February 2025 Executive Order condemning South African policies that undermine property rights and institutionalise racial discrimination, and its anti-Western rhetoric. These concerns are well-founded.
Under current law, racial preferencing is a mandated reality. The Employment Equity targets recently imposed by Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth enforce demographic quotas reminiscent of apartheid-era racial engineering. The human impact is real: even qualified individuals – including black South Africans – are being denied advancement due to the arbitrary racial limits imposed. IRR polling confirms the public rejects this: 84% of voters support merit-based hiring, including 73% of ANC supporters.
Likewise, South Africa’s approach to property rights has long been compromised by race-obsessed policy. From the 1998 National Water Act to the 2002 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, the ANC has eroded private ownership protections. The plight of black farmer David Rakgase – forced into decades of litigation after the government reneged on its promise to sell him land – is emblematic. Most South Africans (68.1%) now oppose the recently passed Expropriation Act, which allows property seizure without compensation.
Commenting on the developments, IRR CEO Dr John Endres said: "President Trump has again shown his signature method of provoking discussion on specific issues through extreme, outlandish spectacle – yet spectacle with enough truth in it for his interlocutors and opponents, even allies, to be unable to ignore the provocation.
“Yesterday, we saw the issue being violent crime and race relations in South Africa.
“Whatever the optics or theatrics, South Africans know the truth about their lived experience. As the IRR’s opinion polling affirms, we are not a country paralysed or set ablaze by racial hatred. 87% of South Africans, according to IRR polling conducted towards the end of 2024, support the statement that the different races need each other for progress and there should be full opportunity for all.
“It is now for the ANC in the GNU to decide what to make of the discomfiting attention of the Trump administration. Will the spotlight shining on South Africa show the world an ANC willing to do introspection on why South Africans deserted it? Will the ANC rediscover the pragmatism that saw it succeed in its first decade in office? Will it listen to the people of South Africa as they demand economic growth, jobs, merit-based hiring, non-racialism, secure property rights, and economic pragmatism?
“Or will the spotlight show an ANC at a loss – a failing, unpopular, lame-duck emperor with no clothes?"
The IRR calls on all government leaders, particularly President Ramaphosa, to heed the clear will of the people: end race-based policy, restore secure property rights, prioritise economic growth, and return South Africa to a pragmatic path that respects individual dignity, liberty, and equality before the law.
Media contact: Hermann Pretorius IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za
Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za