Killed by Donald Trump, but praised in South Africa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his delegation drove to Washington this week in the hope of a thrust and a reset after months of sharpness with the Donald Trump government.

Instead, they got brutal diplomacy with high missions, full of insults and played in real time to the millions around the world. It was like a painful assessment carried out by a boss on a loud hail.

Volkated by many because they remain composed and conciliatory in view of a trump and were criticized by some because he has not reacted more compulsively to tumps, Ramaphosa is waiting back in South Africa, where he and his African National Congress (ANC) are exposed to several fronts.

The ANC was almost a year in a restless coalition – or the government of national unity (GNU) – with 10 other parties, which were forced to share power after dark elections.

There were public struggles between parties inside and outside the coalition about controversial agricultural and health legislation as well as attempts to drive a budget from the parliament that would increase taxes for the most endangered. That almost saw the end of the coalition at the beginning of this year.

The economy stagnates, the crime rates are sky high, as are corruption and unemployment, public services are largely dysfunctional and the infrastructure is crumbling. There seems to be very little accountability for those who violate the law.

This meant unpleasant and intensive questions about Ramaphosa's policy of various political parties and civil society.

In the meantime, the ANC itself is unstable, as a position in 2027 campaigns against the political groups before a decisive election conference in 2027, in which a new party leader probably appears.

At the same time, the loudest critics of Ramaphosa, such as the Eff guide of Economic Freedom Fighters (Eff), Julius Malema, who “prove” in Trump's discredited dossier that the genocide was committed in South Africa, have been committed to white Africanians.

Therefore, Ramaphosa searched for a trade agreement and urgently needed business and stability that would bring this to South Africa in order to promote real and permanent economic growth and bring people back to work.

Ramaphosa said Trump as much about Trump on Wednesday – that US investments were necessary to combat unemployment that was a key factor for the country's high crime rate.

The risk that the Agoa trade agreement with the United States will not be renewed later this year due to the isolationist worldview of Trump was all the more urgent. This gave South Africa for certain goods access to the US market for certain goods and is raised by the fragile economy of South Africa.

The conversation about the trade, however, was overshadowed by Trump's Oval Office about discredited claims that white South Africans were persecuted.

However, there can still be a silver strip for Ramaphosa and thus its party at least in Germany.

Yes, the to-do list is incredibly long, and yes, the pressure for the South African President to hold together a coalition and party that is messy and deeply uncomfortable when he returned. And yes, the ANC is in the weakest position since its power 30 years ago. But it is still in power, even if it shares it.

It is crucial that Ramaphosa's behavior with Trump reminded the South Africans of his diplomatic family tree and its importance for the rules of the country.

He is together with Nelson Mandela, the largest alliance builder and moderator of South Africa. He was in the nerve center to negotiate an end of the racist system of apartheid in the early nineties and to hold South Africa together when many had prophesied their fatal fracture. He stayed calm, smiled and was much bitter before.

He recently steered the country from the bleak “state reckoning year” of the Zuma government and then through the difficult covid closures. And also held the ANC on his feet – only – when he limped home after the 2024 elections. Then he took a wounded ANC into coalition policy and survived despite the opposition from his own party as President.

“I think that if a quick survey was carried out today, we would see that his personal reviews are increasing,” says the South African editor and founder of explanation.co.za Verahni Pillay.

“It is characterized in these high -pressure situations. He has this abundance of negotiation experiences in a much more tense environments in which it is available on the streets and immediately imminent civil war. Therefore they saw what he looked particularly relaxed. He is masterfully spreading the tensions at important moments.”

Surveys have consistently referred the ramaphosa effect – the youngest from the social research foundation in the past month, which indicates that the ANC would be even more bloodless without it, despite, despite the equally critical criticism of the South African president, that he is too slow and undecided to tackle the country's biggest problems. This is largely the case.

But events this week, supposedly intended to harass ramaphosa around the world, mock and embarrass, many South Africans recalled what he brings to the government and the country – a constant, stable and predictable center.

“I think what happened in the Oval Office did the idea of ​​'if not Ramaphosa reinforced?',” Says Pillay.

In fact, some believe that what South Africans have seen in the White House will actually strengthen the GNU – as it is due to great business, which will ultimately insure the South Africans who observed the drama.

“The meeting showed a uniform front from South Africa, a public-private performance that the country has been promoting for over a decade. This for the GNU is a great political theater that translates into political capital,” says Itumeleng Makgetla, a political analyst at the University of Pretoria.

And indeed the look was all there. Ramaphosa enabled a passionate refutation of the worst of Trump's misinformation through interventions by his partner in the GNU – Democratic Alliance (DA), John Steenhuisen – and one of the richest people in South Africa, Johann Rupert – both white South Africans. If Trump understood the performance of the performance, also ramaphosa.

“I think the GNU looks pretty strong from this,” says Pillay. “The GNU passed in a really good moment for South Africa before this crisis. If it was only the ANC government in the room, [Ramaphosa’s arguments] would not have landed. But to be able to say that we have these parties that the white people represent in the government is such a strong statement. “

What does this mean for those on the extreme flanks of South African politics and discourse?

After the lights had dimmed, Julius Malema was shown by Trump that a song sang, which some say that it demands the murder of white farmers, although a dish has decided that it was only political rhetoric. Could he prevent domestic political capital from being put into the global spotlight?

Yes, say some. “For those in the country who are quite tired of President Trump and the USA, the Malema will probably strengthen [and] Parties like the MK because it will basically say: 'See that we certainly cannot bend backwards for such people and lies, “says South African political analyst Prof. Kagiso” TK “Pooe from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

But Pillay disagrees.

“This will not lead to political power for Malema. Most of his top leaders already thought about Jacob Zumas Mk party before Wednesday. Things for the Eff did not look good.

Nevertheless, there is a considerable group of South Africans who want a faster and more radical change – the election results for the MK party, an open group of the ANC.

And what about Afriforum – the African interest group, which pulled on the ears of Trump's supporters for a number of years on the ears of Trump's pendants by praising and spreading right -wing propaganda in the hope of being heard?

Trump's discredited audiovisual presentation of the systematic extermination of the white African farmers was the flood mark of her lobbying, which was reinforced as they were in the oval office.

Despite extraordinarily high violent crimes in South Africa, many are angry with the group. “In a way, I think that many South Africans – even those who do not support the ANC – can finally see that there are certain people for South Africa. These people have been excellent, and that is positive,” says Profi Pooe.

“We know that a large number of Afrikaans speakers are colored people,” says Pillay. “Afriforum put a strong blow to the cause of the Africans in South Africa by racially.”

Kallie Kriel from Afriiforum defended the behavior of the group on a local television station, Newzroom Africa: “It was not Afriforum who was genocidal demands for someone who is killed.

While the drama dust settles on Wednesday, Ramaphosa will watch and calculate. In the recent South African history, he was consistently at the center of the most important diffraction points when a break occurred and the country had to change the course dramatically. He reads these moments so well.

The upheaval on Wednesday in Trump's white house may not be the economic and diplomatic resetting of the United States, which was hoped for, but was still able to mark a dramatic reset for Ramaphosa and the GNU with the South African public.

Additional reporting from Khanyisile Ngcobo in Johannesburg