South Africa turns to golf diplomacy to woo Donald Trump

South African golfer Ernie Els is set to join President Cyril Ramaphosa for a meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday in a bid to mend fractured ties with the golf-loving US president.

Since his inauguration, Trump has cut all aid to South Africa, threatened to boycott this year’s G20 summit — which Pretoria is hosting — and falsely accused Ramaphosa of presiding over a “genocide” of white farmers.

Amid domestic concern that he risks the sort of public dressing down endured by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, Ramaphosa is planning to offer concessions. They include allowing the US preferential access to mineral resources and gas deposits, and opening up South Africa’s market to American agricultural companies, officials said.

Pretoria was also considering a compromise to allow South African-born Elon Musk, an outspoken critic of Ramaphosa’s government, to operate his Starlink satellite internet service in the country, they said.

However, the trade talks are widely considered to be less significant than the broader issue of patching up the relationship. With this in mind, 55-year-old Els — who has won four of golf’s major championships — has been recruited to the delegation, illustrating the unconventional ways in which countries within Trump’s crosshairs have sought to woo him.

“The guy who pulled this over the line was Ernie,” said a South African who helped mediate Wednesday’s meeting.

People involved in the preparations said South Africa studied Japan’s success at golf diplomacy early in Trump’s first term, when then-prime minister Shinzo Abe charmed the president over a round in 2017. Accompanying them was — Els.

The golfer’s presence would help South Africa’s cause two-fold, a person in Ramaphosa’s party suggests: Els knows and is liked by Trump, and his life story reflects how — far from facing a “genocide” — many Afrikaners have thrived in the post-apartheid era.

Another veteran South African golfer, the 89-year-old Gary Player, has also regularly played with Trump, who gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2021. According to a South African government adviser, Player has talked to Ramaphosa about how to work with the US president but is not on the trip.

The Oval Office encounter is viewed with deep anxiety in South Africa, where it is seen as the most important international meeting of Ramaphosa’s seven years in office.

Pretoria has been appalled by Trump’s repeated airing of the conspiracy theory that white farmers in South Africa face a genocide. South Africa’s standing in Washington has plummeted in recent years, US congressional aides say, thanks to its uncritical stance towards Moscow and Tehran and its International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocide over the war in Gaza.

Unconventional diplomacy is all the more vital for Pretoria as South Africa’s last ambassador was expelled in March after describing the administration’s policies as “supremacist”.

South Africa’s package of offers is likely to include easing restrictions on access for US poultry and pork exports, along with opening up opportunities to mining companies to develop helium deposits and critical minerals, South African officials say.

“We believe we can have a comfortable relationship that would make both parties feel that trade co-operation is good and doesn’t tilt to one side,” Maropene Ramokgopa, minister for planning, monitoring and evaluation, told the Financial Times, without confirming any details. “We need America. They need us as well.”

South African officials all but accept that the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows many exports from the country and some other African states duty-free access to American markets, will not be renewed when it expires in September.

This would be a huge blow to South Africa’s economy at a time when it is growing at just over 1 per cent. As part of the proposed deal, South Africa is seeking to protect its exports of cars. But diplomats fear the trade deal has been prepared at lightning speed and has had minimal advance planning.

Musk, Trump’s billionaire adviser, has further inflamed tensions, lambasting South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment laws as “openly racist”.

Aimed at redressing the economic injustices of apartheid by giving stakes in businesses to Black-owned entities, the BEE laws were, he suggested, an insuperable obstacle to his investment in the country.

South African officials signal there is an alternative to giving a stake, by investing in training or infrastructure. Ramokgopa said there were “mitigating avenues” and authorities had done their “best” to address this, she added, without specifying Musk’s case.

The meeting will be a high-stakes test of Ramaphosa’s legendary charm and wily negotiating skills.

The US last week welcomed the first batch of 59 Afrikaners under a controversial new Trump administration refugee scheme. Officials fear Ramaphosa will be publicly confronted with the “genocide” claim and have to decide how to rebut it without infuriating his host.

One person in his delegation said he could pre-empt such a line of attack by, for example, openly asking for Trump’s help with security for all South Africans. While some white farmers have been murdered, South Africa is a violent country, where proportionally and in real terms the bulk of victims are Black people.

“The president can be very calm when he needs to be, but the risk of provocation is severe,” a diplomat said. “The problem is if Ramaphosa sits there and doesn’t react, how does that play back in South Africa?”

Representatives for Els and Player did not respond to requests for comment.