South Africa's worsening relations with the United States will likely result in the loss of duty-free access to the U.S. market for key industries and risk dampening investor confidence due to targeted U.S. sanctions, which may even undermine the country's civil nuclear power sector, depending on the scale and scope of U.S. pressure. On March 14, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, was ''no longer welcome'' in the country after the diplomat criticized U.S. President Donald Trump in a webinar. Rasool's expulsion came amid escalating U.S. pressure on South Africa since Trump took office on Jan. 20. On Feb. 7, Trump signed an executive order suspending all U.S. development aid to South Africa, accusing its government of subjecting white Afrikaners to ''race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.'' The order also accused the South African government of undermining the interests of the United States and its allies, citing the genocide case Pretoria launched against Israel over the Gaza war and South Africa's alleged efforts to develop ''commercial, military and nuclear arrangements'' with Iran. In response, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his country ''wouldn't be bullied'' and announced plans to send envoys to the United States to try to de-escalate the crisis. Despite comments by South African officials that Pretoria is considering striking a transactional deal with Washington, bilateral relations have further worsened as Ramaphosa's center-left African National Congress party (ANC) has sustained engagements with Iran, with ANC First Deputy Secretary General Nomvula Mokonyane meeting Iran's ambassador to the country on March 4 as part of efforts to ''consolidate strategic relations'' with Tehran.

• Trump's Feb. 7 executive order vowed to grant Afrikaners refugee status in the United States. According to the president of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the United States, this prompted over 17,500 inquiries by South Africans within 48 hours. In a March 7 post on Truth Social, Trump said that ''any Farmer (with family!)'' that would ''flee'' to the United States due to safety concerns would be given a rapid pathway to U.S. citizenship. 
• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a G20 meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Johannesburg on Jan. 20-21, blaming South Africa for ''doing very bad things,'' including ''expropriating private property'' and promoting ''DEI'' — an apparent reference to South African policies that the Trump administration alleges discriminate against white citizens.
• On March 6, Ramaphosa's office confirmed that the United States would halt its $1 billion participation in the country's $13.8 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership, or JETP, which aims to help transition the country's energy mix away from coal-fired power plants. However, this step appears linked to Trump's ongoing overhaul of U.S. development aid, with other countries benefitting from a JETP, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, also said to be facing a withdrawal in U.S. funding. 

South Africa's foreign policy has sparked growing U.S. criticism in recent years, but Trump's pressure campaign on Pretoria changes the nature of the dispute by taking aim at the country's domestic policies designed to redress the racial and economic legacies of apartheid. South Africa has leveraged its membership in the BRICS bloc to position itself as a leading proponent of a multipolar world order, which has resulted in growing bipartisan backlash from the United States in recent years. Tensions first emerged in April 2023, when the then-U.S. ambassador to South Africa accused Pretoria of supplying weapons to Russia. Tensions further escalated in December 2023 after South Africa filed evidence before the International Court of Justice that it claims shows Israel has violated the genocide convention in Gaza, triggering bipartisan backlash within the United States. Moreover, South Africa has also faced mounting criticism for its relations with Iran, including its support for Tehran's BRICS membership bid, Pretoria's alleged ties to Hamas, and South African ministers' openness to civil nuclear cooperation with Iran. Together with South Africa's close ties with China, this has fueled growing accusations in Washington that Pretoria is siding with U.S. adversaries. However, the new White House's criticism of Pretoria expands the dispute beyond foreign policy, as Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk are now also openly attacking South Africa's domestic policies that were designed to redress the racial and economic inequalities institutionalized under the apartheid regime. Trump's criticism appears focused on South Africa's Expropriation Act 2024, which was enacted in January and opens the door to expropriation without compensation in a select number of cases, for example when property is left unused or when owners are deemed as failing to exercise control over the property. However, Musk, who was born in South Africa, has also criticized Pretoria's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) legislation by claiming that the country has ''openly racist ownership laws'' that prevented his company Starlink from operating in South Africa ''because [he is] not Black.'' 

• On Feb. 17, South African Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe also said that both Russia and Iran would be welcome to participate in the ongoing tender process to expand the power production capacity of South Africa's Koeberg nuclear power plant. 
• The Expropriation Act 2024 replaced the previous Expropriation Act 1975 enacted during apartheid. The new act expands judicial oversight over the expropriation process and requires a court order for authorities to inspect a property if the owner does not consent to an inspection. However, it provides for nil compensation in a select number of cases when deemed in ''public interest'' — which, according to the South African Constitution, includes land reform. This provision has been criticized as weakening property rights, but proponents of the new act say that expropriation without compensation would be implemented rarely and subjected to strict judicial review. 
• BEE policies include measures that require Black ownership in certain industries (such as mining and telecommunication), incentivize the hiring of Black South Africans, and offer preferential government procurement for Black-owned businesses.

Despite attempts by the South African government to strike a transactional deal with the United States, the Trump administration will likely demand major concessions regarding Pretoria's foreign policy, Black economic empowerment legislation and/or land reform that Ramaphosa will struggle to deliver, likely further straining bilateral relations in the coming months. On March 5, The New York Times reported that a spokesperson for Ramaphosa said the South African government was preparing to offer the United States a draft trade deal, as well as greater access to gas exploration in South Africa, in an effort to ease tensions. The same spokesperson later indicated that Pretoria was also considering increasing U.S. access to South Africa's vast mineral resources. These proposals showcase Pretoria's interest in striking a deal with the Trump administration, and could notably see U.S. oil majors and mining companies enjoy preferential access to ongoing hydrocarbon exploration efforts in South Africa's Orange Basin and Mpumalanga province, as well as to the country's platinum, rhodium and manganese deposits. However, Trump's rhetoric suggests that his administration will likely demand major concessions regarding South Africa's foreign policy and/or its Black empowerment agenda, whether that is amendments to the Expropriation Act 2024, the withdrawal of South Africa's genocide case against Israel or curbing ties with Iran and China. While stronger legal guardrails to expropriation without compensation and limited amendments to BEE legislation could be introduced given support for such proposals by the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), the ruling ANC's junior partner in government, major policy shifts on either front currently appear unlikely as they would expose Ramaphosa to significant backlash from within his ANC party that could ultimately see him removed from power. Moreover, Ramaphosa appears unlikely to drop South Africa's genocide case against Israel given the ANC's legacy as a liberation movement and its historic affinity to the Palestinian cause. Given these constraints, South Africa thus appears unlikely to make sufficient concessions in the short term, which, together with Trump's disinterest in compromising, will likely worsen tensions between the two countries in the coming months.

• In 2023, the South African government estimated that the country's onshore and offshore natural gas reserves amounted to 260 trillion cubic feet, which — if proven — would position South Africa as one of the top 10 countries by natural gas reserves globally, ahead of Algeria, Nigeria and Venezuela. 
• The ANC has faced repeated accusations from right-leaning personalities of having financially benefited from its relationship with Iran. These accusations are based on the fact that the ANC reached a settlement with one of its creditors for over 102 million rand in debt in December 2023, just days from its filing of genocide accusations against Israel, despite the ANC's difficulties in paying party employees. These accusations currently lack substantive evidence, and the ANC has repeatedly rejected them. 
• The South African government has pressured Taiwan to relocate its liaison office outside of the capital, Pretoria, since December 2023. The move, which the United States views as an attempt by South Africa to reinforce ties with China, has drawn criticism from several prominent U.S. lawmakers, including Ted Cruz, who chairs the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy.

Tensions with the United States will likely result in South Africa losing duty-free access to the U.S. market for key industries, which would hit the agriculture and automobile sectors hardest; but Trump could also impose sanctions on South African officials and entities with links to Iran, which would weaken investor confidence in South Africa and could undermine the country's civil nuclear power sector. In the absence of rapid and major concessions from Pretoria over foreign policy and/or Black empowerment policies, Trump will likely impose more punitive measures on South Africa. These measures will likely include rescinding South Africa's access to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, even if the U.S. Congress renews the act, and could also involve unilateral U.S. tariffs. While South Africa's limited reliance on exports to the United States suggests that losing access to the AGOA is unlikely to, by itself, significantly dent South Africa's economic growth, it would subject many companies in the country to rising costs, with those operating in the agricultural and automotive sectors most exposed. The Trump administration may also impose primary sanctions on South African officials and entities with alleged links to Iran, for example in the country's civil nuclear power sector. Such steps, which may also involve halting all U.S.-South Africa cooperation on nuclear power, could hinder the operation of South Africa's 1,860-megawatt Koeberg nuclear power plant, which would undermine South Africa's baseload power production and risk causing more frequent rolling blackouts. Combined with trade retaliation, these measures would likely weaken investor confidence in South Africa, hurting its coalition government's efforts to turn around the South African economy while fuelling tensions between the ANC and the DA. While Ramaphosa appears intent on strengthening ties with the European Union to mitigate these risks, such steps by the United States would increase pressure on Pretoria to make more meaningful concessions to the Trump administration, especially regarding ties to Iran. However, Ramaphosa would still face political constraints in meeting the Trump administration's broader demands, meaning that Pretoria may still resist making sufficient concessions to strike a deal with Washington unless there is a further increase in U.S. economic coercion, such as curbs on U.S. investments in South Africa. 

• The AGOA provides exporters from over 30 African countries with duty-free access to around 1,800 categories of U.S. goods, but the act is due to expire in late September. Republican Congressman John James introduced a bill to reauthorize the AGOA through 2037 in the House of Representatives in December 2024. However, the South African government reportedly assesses that Congress will not renew the agreement due to pressure from Trump, hence its proposal for a bilateral trade deal with the United States.
• While the United States is South Africa's second-largest trading partner, it only represented around 8.5% of South Africa's total exports in 2023, meaning that U.S. trade retaliation would likely have only a limited impact on South Africa's overall economic growth. However, sectors such as agriculture and the automobile industry would be vulnerable to South Africa's removal from the AGOA, as they are some of the top beneficiaries of the trade framework. 
• South Africa is in the process of negotiating a new nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States — known as a Section 123 agreement — that allows the United States to transfer nuclear material to South Africa. 
• Measures that could compel the South African government to rapidly make concessions to the Trump administration could involve curbs on U.S. investments in South Africa or a ban on U.S. entities from purchasing debt from the South African government and/or South African state-owned enterprises. While these measures currently appear unlikely, their likelihood would increase should the standoff between the Trump administration and South Africa become protracted.