South Africa’s foreign minister announced Wednesday that the country had formally summoned the new United States ambassador, demanding an explanation for remarks that officials described as a clear breach of diplomatic norms. The move is the most direct signal yet of how severely relations between the two former allies have deteriorated since the Trump administration returned to power earlier last year.
Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III, a conservative activist and Trump appointee who only took up his post in Pretoria last month, addressed a gathering of business leaders on Tuesday. During that appearance, he challenged South Africa on two deeply sensitive fronts. He questioned the country’s affirmative action framework, which was designed to expand opportunities for Black South Africans following decades of racial segregation under apartheid, comparing those laws to the very race-based policies that once oppressed Black citizens. He also raised pointed concerns about Pretoria’s ongoing diplomatic relationship with Iran, a pressure point Washington has pushed repeatedly.
The comments drew a swift and firm response from the government. Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola held a press conference Wednesday and made clear that while South Africa welcomes active public diplomacy, any engagement must remain consistent with established international protocols. He confirmed that Bozell had been called in to account for what the government described as undiplomatic remarks. Foreign ministry officials later said the ambassador apologized and expressed regret during that meeting, though Washington offered no immediate public comment.
A relationship at its lowest point
The episode is the latest in a series of confrontations that have driven US-South Africa ties to their lowest point since the end of apartheid in 1994. Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, Washington has expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, barred the country from participating in Group of 20 meetings held on American soil this year, and repeatedly leveled accusations against the Black-led South African government that critics and even some conservative white Afrikaner groups have rejected as baseless.
Chief among those accusations is the claim that white minority farmers are being systematically targeted in an organized campaign of violence and killings. South African officials have firmly disputed that characterization, and it has not been independently substantiated. Trump raised the issue face to face with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a charged White House meeting that drew widespread international attention and further strained an already fragile relationship.
Five demands and no ambassador reply
Bozell used his Tuesday address to lay out what he described as five requests the United States had formally presented to South Africa roughly a year ago. Those requests included distancing Pretoria from Iran, revising parts of its affirmative action legislation that affect American companies operating in the country, formally prohibiting land expropriation without compensation, designating rural crime a national priority, and publicly condemning a controversial apartheid-era chant containing a phrase widely interpreted as inciting violence against white farmers.
He made clear that Washington had grown frustrated after receiving no formal response to any of those requests in the months since they were submitted.
Bozell did walk back one comment from the business forum. He had dismissed a South African court ruling that found the chant did not constitute hate speech, saying he did not care what the courts decided. By the following morning he had clarified that his words reflected a personal opinion and that the US government fully respects the independence and findings of South Africa’s judiciary.
Strains on the biggest trading relationship in Africa
The stakes here stretch far beyond political posturing. The United States remains South Africa’s single largest trading partner on the African continent, and the ongoing friction has created mounting uncertainty for businesses and investors operating across both economies. Bozell arrived saying he had not come to pick a fight, but the formal diplomatic summons triggered by his very first major public appearance suggests that rebuilding trust between Pretoria and Washington will be neither quick nor easy.
