Reading the tea leaves on SA-US relations

I once spent an evening with Thomas Friedman, the famous political commentator, The New York Times Middle East correspondent, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of the bestselling book From Beirut to Jerusalem. 

Friedman described the changes in his life from covering bomb blasts, assassinations, massacres, and invasions in Lebanon, to becoming the Times’ chief diplomatic correspondent and later chief White House correspondent. 

In his previous posting he could cover his stories in gore and blood. In the press briefing rooms at both the Department of State at Foggy Bottom and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, he would try to interpret the nuances of words and the encoded messages that the American president or secretary of state wanted to send to the world but never say directly to camera. Friedman much preferred the grit of the Middle East, where messages are sent with bullets and bombs, to the inflections in linguistic hieroglyphs. 

Admittedly, the Trump presidency has done away with the niceties of diplomatic speak. News from the White House Press Briefing Room is now in-your-face, often sarcastic, and regularly incredulous. 

But in the world of international diplomacy, messages are sent in signals, and each side gathers around the porcelain to decipher the tea leaves. 

I think the signals are clear. A failing South African economy, rising unemployment, a deeply wounded African National Congress (ANC), crumbling in the polls before the 4 November municipal elections, and a collapsing Ramaphosa legacy have sent the president scrambling to try repair some of the enormous damage that he and his anti-Western foreign policy have wrought upon our nation. 

The appointment of former National Party negotiator Roelf Meyer as ambassador to the United States was the first indication that Ramaphosa was seriously willing to attempt to thaw relations with the US. The Americans reciprocated with an agrément (a willingness to accept the new ambassador) within days. Meyer’s departure for the US was so hasty that he needed to be summoned back shortly afterwards for formalities and a security check. I still wonder whether they will ever discover that he was a member of the National Party? 

But a far more significant signal was sent in July 2026 when both the South African government and the ANC failed to send a representative to the state funeral of the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Iran, which had been the ANC’s financial benefactor, had suddenly been dropped. The only South African who appears to have made the pilgrimage to pay homage to the brutal mass murderer of Iran was former Economic Freedom Fighters member of Parliament Mbuyiseni Ndlozi. Scandal and controversy swirled around his attendance and his public utterances, as questions were asked about who paid for the former politician-now struggling podcaster’s funeral junket. 

The ANC had turned its back on its paymasters and South Africa had snubbed one of its closest allies with their failure to attend the week-long funeral dirge that ran from Tehran, through Qom, then travelled to Iraq for sacred processions in Najaf and Karbala, and concluded with a holy burial in Mashhad. 

The wind was shifting. In August 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa invited Rabbi Doron Perez, chairperson of the World Zionist Organization, for a meeting where Perez and his wife could thank Ramaphosa for his supposed assistance in prioritising the return of the body of their son Daniel from Hamas captivity. 

South African-born Captain Daniel Perez was an Israeli tank commander who was killed by Hamas on 7 October 2023, and his body held hostage by the terrorist organisation in Gaza. Ultimately, his remains were returned as part of the American-facilitated exchange of Hamas terrorists for living and dead Israeli hostages captured by Hamas during its genocidal raid on Israel, which killed 1 200 people in a single day and sparked a war that would devastate the Gaza Strip. 

Some have criticised the Perez family for allowing Ramaphosa to whitewash his image by giving him credit for the expedited release of Daniel’s body. Ramaphosa is the only democratically elected head of state to have chanted the genocidal war-cry “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, a slogan interpreted by most as calling for the destruction of Israel. 

But being willing to sit with the head of the World Zionist Organization and allowing that encounter to be both photographed and released to the public was an important signal, which cannot be underplayed. 

The US, meanwhile, extended South Africa’s free trade benefits under AGOA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act. 

Ramaphosa is shaping his own foreign policy, which appears at odds with that of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) with its pro-jihadist and radical anti-Western ideological stance orchestrated by Director-General Zane Dangor. Whispers in the corridors in Pretoria are that Dangor’s days may be numbered. 

But South Africa loves to play both sides of the equation. Last week, DIRCO announced that it had filed a new motion against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but failed to release these new legal documents to the press. It was performative. 

Some believe that this action was Dangor playing his hand to counter the conciliatory moves emanating from the Union Buildings. 

Meanwhile, a delegation of South African royals is currently in Israel, doing the unthinkable – actually assessing the situation for themselves. That follows a visit to Israel by abaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, which angered DIRCO so much that it felt the need to expel the deputy Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Ariel Seidman. 

Of course, the visit to Israel in late 2025 by Nelson Mandela’s granddaughters Zamaswazi Dlamini-Mandela and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway also deeply damaged the South African one-sided narrative on the Jewish State. 

Like Thomas Friedman, but far less accomplished, I too sit here reading the tea leaves. Maybe they are signals, maybe the wind is changing, but possibly I should just swap my Five Roses for a cup of Rooibos. 

• Howard Sackstein is a political commentator and chairperson of the SA Jewish Report, but writes in his personal capacity. He has a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and a Master’s in political advocacy and international conflict resolution.