McEbisi Jonas “avoided” and Scott Bessent skip G20 meeting

The Trump administration treats South Africa almost as it does, blacklisting it, refusing to send senior officials to its host meetings, and threatening to attack the country with such high tariffs that its economic crisis could deepen.

The latest sign of this is revealed by the South African Union Government’s second largest political party, the Democratic League (DA), that the U.S. government rejected President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoy, denied that he was in May and May and Refusing to admit that he is a “formal interlocutor”.

Ramaphosa created a position for McEbisi Jonas, non-executive chairman and former deputy finance minister of mobile phone giant MTN, to improve South Africa’s rock relationship with the United States and the United States.

A spokesman for Ramaphosa accused the DA of “false information” but did not explicitly deny the party’s claims. The U.S. State Department declined to comment when contacted by the BBC, citing “visa record confidentiality.”

Jonas’ appointment comes after President Donald Trump cut off aid to South Africa, accusing the Ramaphosa administration of persecuting white people, denounced it as a condemnation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide against Israel and “revitalizing” relations with Iran – an enemy of the United States.

Priyal Singh, a South African foreign policy expert based in the Pretoria Security Institute, told the BBC that if DA’s claim on Jonas is true, it would be in line with the Trump administration’s strategy to give South Africa a cold shoulder and cut off the urgently needed channels of communication, which is so urgently needed”.

The United States has not only cut its bilateral relations with South Africa, but has resisted it in global institutions such as the G20 – Ramaphosa’s current president, hoping to promote the interests of developing countries in negotiations with the world’s wealthiest states.

The latest sign is that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent decided to skip the UN Treasury Secretary meeting held in South Africa on Thursday and would rather send a lower-level official.

Bessent skipped a similar meeting in February, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stayed away from the 20-yard foreign minister meeting, saying Ramaphosa’s administration was doing “very bad things” and that he could not “infringe “anti-Americanism.”

After Trump invited him to the Oval Office in May, Ramaphosa had hoped that relations with the United States would regain their relationship with the United States—just let the U.S. president ambush him by showing the camera and waving a large number of false reports to push him to widely discredit his genocide against white South Africans.

Jonas was overwhelmed by the Coli delegation in Ramaphosa, proving the DA’s claim that he was unpopular in Washington.

This brings South Africa back to the first side as the United States expelled Washington Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool in his leaked speech he accused Trump of “mobilizing supremacy” and attempts to “mobilize the dog whistle of white victims” as the white population faces the number of times the white population faces the few people in the white population.

In a politically bizarre decision, Ramaphosa, despite its significance, lacked qualified professional diplomats in his government who could rebuild relations with South Africa’s second largest trading partner.

Instead, Ramaphosa pinned her hopes on a special envoy, who said that when Jonas was appointed, he would “lead negotiations, promote strategic partnerships, and interact with U.S. government officials and private sector leaders to promote the interests of our country.”

But it is unclear how Ramaphosa expects Jonas to achieve this, as he, like Rasour, made a controversy over Trump, calling him a 2020 speech, called him a “racist” and a “narcissistic right” that he came back to bother him after a date.

MTN holds a 49% stake in Iranian telecom company Irancell, a major focus in the United States.

South Africa is “more cautious” (as Mr Singh said) in its June response to U.S. air strikes against Iran, simply saying it saw a conflict of “great anxiety” and hopes it can be resolved through dialogue.

W Gyude Moore, a policy analyst based in the Center for Global Development in the United States, told the BBC that it is not surprising that South Africa is on the Trump shooting line.

He pointed out that South Africa advocates Trump’s support base to “awaken culture.” Ramaphosa, for example, sees the G20 as a forum through which to promote international “solidarity, equality and sustainability” that Rubio opposes, equating it with “diversity, equity and inclusion” and climate change.

Mr Moore said it was also the Trump administration’s attitude towards South Africa’s “black empowerment” policy, accusing it of “racial-based discrimination” against whites. Ramaphosa’s government believes that coping with the legacy of the racist system is necessary.

Moore added: “I can’t see how to resolve the differences. South Africa just needs to keep moving forward and strengthen its ties with other countries. This is not the only aspect of the Trump administration’s brigade general.”

But this is a major blow to South Africa as it maintains strong trade and aid relations with the continuous Republican and Democratic governments, despite huge differences with them.

Mr Singh noted that South Africa, for example, opposed the Republican George W Bush’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but South Africa still benefits from it. His plan to address HIV/AIDSUntil earlier this year, the Trump administration cut funds.

“The Trump administration is completely different and caught off guard. South Africa just needs to avoid the storm and try to mitigate the losses,” Singh said.

However, the economic consequences can be devastating – especially if Trump imposes a 30% tariff on South African goods starting August 1, as he threatens to do so.

South Africa’s central bank chief Lesetja Kganyago said tariffs could cause about 100,000 jobs – countries worried about unemployment rates reaching 32.9%.

Tariffs will severely hit South Africa’s agricultural sector. Ironically, Trump portrayed himself as a supporter of the country’s Dutch farmers, providing them with refugee status in the United States.

This also gives them the opportunity to farm in the United States and promote their economy in accordance with Trump’s “America First” policy.