About the USA’s New Visa Restrictions Against South African Officials

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes the latest announcement by the United States of America’s (US) government to impose visa restrictions on yet unnamed South African officials under the pretext of opposition to land reform, “racial policies,” and alleged discrimination.

The US government has once again demonstrated that it is prepared to weaponise its diplomatic and economic power to interfere in the sovereign affairs of South Africa. The latest announcement must be understood within the broader deterioration of relations between the US and South Africa, particularly following South Africa’s principled decision to institute proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and to refuse to subordinate its foreign policy to the interests of the US and its allies.

The EFF has consistently maintained that South Africa must determine its own domestic and foreign policy without receiving instructions from any other foreign power. The US, however, has repeatedly attempted to punish South Africa for exercising an independent foreign policy to the extent that they refused to participate in South Africa’s G20 Presidency processes, including the Leaders’ Summit, despite South Africa being a founding member of the G20.

This latest visa announcement therefore cannot be viewed in isolation. It is part of an escalating pattern in which the US seeks to use its international influence to pressure South Africa into abandoning policies aimed at correcting the economic and racial inequalities created by colonialism and apartheid.

South Africa’s land question is a consequence of centuries of colonial conquest, dispossession and apartheid land legislation. The overwhelming concentration of land ownership remains a consequence of that history, and any serious programme of economic transformation must confront it. This process was aided more recently by the amendment of the Land Expropriation Act, which has sent fascists both local and abroad into a tailspin.

However, the US has no democratic mandate to determine how South Africa addresses the consequences of apartheid. It is particularly hypocritical for them to lecture South Africa about racial discrimination while its own administration is openly targeting Black people and other minorities in a brutal sweep of human rights violations that has not been witnessed in a long time. All this while simultaneously offering a special refugee pathway to Afrikaners on claims about alleged persecution of white South Africans which are obviously untrue. The EFF rejects the attempt to transform the privileges inherited from apartheid into permanent international protection from redistribution.

The EFF has also repeatedly warned the South African government about the international lobbying activities of organisations that seek to persuade foreign governments to intervene in South Africa’s domestic affairs. AfriForum has openly documented meetings with senior representatives of the Trump administration and has called for intensified pressure on South African political leaders over legislation and policies including land reform, affirmative action, and the BELA Act.

The EFF warned the government that allowing white supremacist organisations to internationalise South Africa’s domestic political disputes was tantamount to treason and would create precisely the conditions we are witnessing today. The government failed to act and now foreign governments are using narratives promoted internationally by these organisations as justification for measures against South Africans.

The South African government must therefore stop pretending that this is simply a diplomatic disagreement. There is an organised international campaign around the political direction of South Africa, and the government has a responsibility to defend the country’s sovereignty. The US remains a major global power, but its ability to dictate political outcomes around the world cannot be treated as unlimited or permanent. They are currently losing the war they started with Iran, and have been abandoned by most of their allies in this fruitless imperialist bullying. At the same time, there is a growing change in the distribution of global power and the role of countries outside the traditional Western bloc.

South Africa therefore must not behave as though the US is the sole centre of the international system. We must continue to deepen relations with Africa, the Global South, BRICS countries and other nations that recognise the principle of sovereign equality.

The EFF calls on the South African government to respond to these measures with firmness, clarity and dignity. The government must defend South Africa’s sovereign right to pursue transformation, and we also call on the government to urgently investigate and respond to organisations operating from South Africa that actively lobby foreign governments to impose pressure on the South African state.

The EFF has a complex relationship with the South African Communist Party (SACP).

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