South Africa is picking a fight with America it cannot win. This week, the country’s top general flew to Iran to deepen military cooperation with its Islamist regime. Just days earlier, African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula challenged Donald Trump to “bring on” sanctions.
A month prior, Deputy President Paul Mashatile — also of the ANC — visited China and Russia to expand economic ties. Beijing and Moscow went on to announce this month they would again participate in naval wargames off South Africa’s coast in November.
The ANC, once the party of Nelson Mandela, is moving South Africa away from its historical position of non-alignment and concern for human rights to active support for America’s enemies, all of them oppressive dictatorships.
This is the product of the ANC turning away from Mandela’s idealism and resurrecting historical anti-colonial narratives to garner cheap wins at home. This trend, along with measures of blatant corruption and simple recklessness, is why South Africa is no longer just courting America’s most dangerous adversaries but daring America’s leader to respond.
Here’s the playbook for fighting back.
The White House should first move to keep South Africa on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) notorious grey list — FATF is an intergovernmental watchdog that fights money laundering and terror finance.
Little known outside expert circles, FATF’s grey list carries significant reputational risks and leads to reduced international investment. FATF added South Africa to the grey list in 2023 for deficiencies in counter-terrorist financing, anti-money laundering, and anti-corruption measures.
Despite failing to make meaningful reforms, the country is now pushing for its removal at FATF’s upcoming plenary meeting in October. The Trump administration should aggressively oppose Pretoria’s removal until it makes substantial progress in addressing its pervasive corruption, illicit finance challenges, and strategic cooperation with regimes deeply enmeshed in illicit activity.
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, a U.S.-funded project of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, South Africa’s “political system has been accused of being a kleptocracy, damaging the image of the South African police and leading to a significant drop in trust from the public.” Just last month, its police minister was suspended over allegations that he helped dismantle a unit investigating politically motivated killings. What’s more, South Africa is home to terrorist financiers whose work in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and even ISIS fails to spur much action against them.
In February, Trump ended all U.S. assistance to South Africa, citing its support for U.S. adversaries — including accusations of renewed commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements with Iran. Since then, the administration has expelled South Africa’s ambassador and imposed 30 percent tariffs on its exports to the United States.
Meanwhile, the country’s minister of mineral and petroleum resources, Gwede Mantashe, has publicly welcomed nuclear energy cooperation with Russia and Iran. Pretoria’s pending overtures to the United States on trade, made at the same time as it is deepening ties with Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing, are unlikely to be successful.
In Congress, legislation aimed at reviewing the U.S.-South Africa bilateral relationship is currently under consideration and could be attached to a must-pass defense authorization bill by the end of the year.
Having already cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee last month, this bipartisan bill would require the president to identify ANC figures, like the deputy president and minister of mineral and petroleum resources, who may be eligible for sanctions over corruption and human rights abuses.
Other worthwhile targets for sanctions designation include Emad Saber — a top Hamas official in South Africa — as well as Al-Quds Foundation of South Africa (AQFSA) and its director, Ebrahim Gabriels. AQFSA is the South African branch of Al-Quds International Foundation, an organization sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2012 for “rais[ing] funds for Hamas projects…through the cover of charity.”
Treasury should also investigate South Africans like Mandla Mandela — the grandson of Nelson Mandela — and political opposition figure Julius Malema whose emergence as vocal supporters of Hamas recently led the United Kingdom to deny them entry visas.
It is not too late for South Africa to change course. For all its entrenched corruption, economic malaise, and growing alignment with China, Russia, and Iran, the country could still be a valuable partner to the United States. It occupies a critical maritime crossroads at the Cape of Good Hope, holds substantial reserves of critical minerals essential to America’s defense-industrial base and advanced technologies, and has a large and educated but underemployed youth population that could drive a future economic revival.
The choice should be clear: align with the United States and benefit from its markets, security cooperation, and investment, or continue courting America’s enemies and face escalating isolation. Trump can and should wield America’s economic might in the wake of South Africa’s continued hostilities. But he doesn’t need to give South Africa a black eye to do that. Keeping it on FATF’s grey list, along with judicious use of sanctions, should suffice.
Max Meizlish is a senior research analyst for the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on X: @maxmeizlish.