Here’s how this ends: smiles and handshakes on the White House lawn on a warm spring day.
The national anthems, performed by South African soprano Pretty Yende. A Xhosa praise singer enters from the colonnade, his calls echoing along the columns as the two presidents walk slowly behind him.
President Donald Trump allows his guest to precede him, and the two leaders take their place at the podiums, preparing to celebrate the signing of a new, bilateral treaty.
The terms of the treaty conform roughly to Trump’s demands. In exchange for favorable trade terms from the U.S., South Africa agrees to repeal the Expropriation Act, which triggered the present diplomatic crisis. It also agrees to create “Freedom Zones” near Cape Town and Johannesburg.
There, foreign companies will be exempted from South Africa’s strict labor laws and from so-called “Black Economic Empowerment” rules, which require investors to hand over a large portion of their equity to ruling party cronies.
Under the new agreement, members of the South African elite will enjoy a one-year amnesty in which to repatriate illicit funds they have hidden in foreign bank accounts; after that, the U.S. will require financial institutions to freeze and seize the money.
South Africa will also commit to defending the safety of farmers, and of women from every background, subject to annual monitoring and reporting.
The South African government agrees to end military exercises with China and Russia, and to end all cooperation with the Iranian regime. It also agrees to end its defamatory case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
In return, the U.S. not only agrees to renew the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, and South Africa’s membership in it, but also to back a South African bid to host the Olympics, and to invest in the infrastructure, committing billions in private funding.
All of this is possible. But South Africa’s leaders have to learn a different way of engaging Trump.
Here are some tips.
1. Meetings alone won’t resolve this. South Africa is planning to send at least three delegations to the U.S. in an attempt to smooth things over. But there is almost no official who can, or will, meet with them.
President Trump won’t; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is already boycotting a meeting in South Africa, won’t; and Democrats are blocking the confirmation of other officials who might be inclined to talk. Actually, even Democrats want the U.S. to punish South Africa for siding with Russia against Ukraine.
Commit, publicly, to making changes, then try to meet.
2. Stop treating President Trump, and Republicans, with contempt. The South African government, and the media, have demonized Trump and the Republican Party for so long that they cannot understand anything about what is currently going on in America.
President Cyril Ramaphosa claimed Trump was spreading “misinformation”; even former President Thabo Mbeki said he was baffled by a “radical change” in the Republican Party, “overnight.” The popular cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (“Zapiro”) portrayed Trump and Elon Musk as Nazis.
That does not help.
3. Mineral wealth is no longer a trump card. South Africa appears to believe it can get away with any kind of behavior because the world needs its gold, platinum, and rare earth minerals.
Trump’s executive order makes clear that South Africa’s most valuable resource is actually its people, who are more easily extracted.
Make life better for South Africans, and you will be a far stronger country, domestically and on the international stage.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The post Blue State Blues: Free Advice to the South African Government on Dealing with Trump appeared first on Breitbart.
