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Within the face of mounting stress from buying and selling companions, President Cyril Ramaphosa reaffirmed South Africa’s dedication to non-alignment within the ongoing battle between Russia and Ukraine. Ramaphosa emphasised that SA would keep its place on peaceable battle decision and resist exterior pressures to take sides. The remarks got here amidst accusations that South Africa had equipped weapons to Russia, contradicting its impartial stance. The US, SA’s second-largest buying and selling companion, had threatened potential penalties, together with the revocation of duty-free entry to American markets. With the upcoming BRICS summit and the invitation prolonged to Russian President Vladimir Putin, South Africa’s stance is anticipated to face additional scrutiny from its world allies.
Ramaphosa Guidelines Out South Africa Abandoning Impartial Stance on Struggle in Ukraine
By S’thembile Cele
South Africa’s president insisted his nation received’t be drawn into taking sides within the battle between Russia and Ukraine, even because it faces stress from a few of its primary buying and selling companions to vary course.
“Some international locations, together with our personal, are being threatened with penalties for pursuing an impartial overseas coverage and for adopting a place of non-alignment,” President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned in a speech on the outskirts of Johannesburg on Thursday. “We are going to keep our place on the peaceable decision of battle wherever these conflicts happen.”
Learn extra: SA in Bloomberg world publication’s highlight: “Embracing Putin is a big gamble”
Ramaphosa’s feedback come weeks after US Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety accused Pretoria of contradicting its impartial stance by supplying weapons to Russia, an allegation Ramaphosa has denied. Brigety implied that South Africa could lose its duty-free entry to American markets, a prospect that despatched the rand to a document low in opposition to the greenback earlier than the 2 governments sought to clean over the diplomatic row.
The US is South Africa’s second-biggest buying and selling companion, with whole commerce between the 2 nations estimated at $23.3 billion final yr. That compares with the $850 million of exports and imports between South Africa and Russia final yr, in keeping with Worldwide Financial Fund knowledge.
South Africa has duty-free entry to the world’s largest economic system below the American Development and Alternative Act and the so-called Generalized System of Preferences — final yr it exported $2.7 billion of products below the applications. AGOA expires in 2025 and US officers have beforehand mentioned the qualifying standards for beneficiaries might be revised or this system changed.
Brigety’s allegations added to US anger about South Africa’s abstention from United Nations resolutions condemning Russia’s aggression and internet hosting its warships for naval workout routines.
Learn extra: “Lifeless” Ramaphosa doesn’t have it in him to final a second time period – Sam Mkokeli
South Africa’s internet hosting of an August summit of leaders from the BRICS international locations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — could reignite tensions: Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend and South Africa has but to determine the way it will deal with an Worldwide Prison Courtroom warrant for his arrest if he does.
“There may be going to be a number of uncertainty within the lead as much as the BRICS summit,” mentioned EY Africa Chief Economist Angelika Goliger. “Our key buying and selling companions, the US and EU, and the world, will probably be watching how the federal government engages with Russia previous and throughout the summit.”
Ramaphosa mentioned South Africa refuses to be drawn into any contest between world powers.
“As African international locations, we now have painful recollections of a time when proxy wars had been waged on the soils of Africa by overseas superpowers,” he mentioned. “We’ve not forgotten the horrible, brutal legacy of first having our continent carved up and colonized by European international locations, solely to search out ourselves as soon as extra pawns on a chessboard throughout the Chilly Struggle. We aren’t going again to that interval in historical past.”
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