This changes everything: The threat of Trumpism for South Africa

First published at Amandla!.

In just a few weeks, the second coming of Trump has started to reconfigure the international political architecture that emerged after the Second World War. This has profound implications for countries both in the global North and South. That neofascists have come to power in the US, the most powerful country in the world, makes the chaotic and threatening global situation even more alarming.

Already, South Africa has felt the impact of Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) foreign policy. Most recently, the South African ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, has been expelled. One of the first of Trump’s many executive orders after his inauguration was directed at South Africa. All financial assistance to South Africa was stopped, with significant impact for vital health programmes, including HIV/AIDS. In the same executive order, the US Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security were instructed to prioritise the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees facing the expropriation of their land. Apparently, about 70,000 have applied.

South Africans were able to experience first-hand the lies and myths which are the bedrock of Trumpism. For calling out Israel’s genocide, the South African government is subject to Trump’s punitive actions. And no doubt more is to follow.

All the while, the South African government is trying to diplomatically tiptoe around these setbacks in a vain attempt to retain friendly relations with the US. President Ramaphosa told Parliament recently that South Africa will send envoys to the United States to smooth out relations between the two countries. But that seems farfetched unless the South African government is prepared to completely capitulate to the US view of the world.

Trumpism 2.0

We need to understand the nature of Trumpism 2.0. Those in power in the US must be understood not as blustering buffoons, or vacillating deal makers, or isolationists intent on withdrawing the US from international affairs. Trump and his acolytes are part of an extreme right-wing force with a mass base amongst, mostly but not only, white Americans. They must be called out for what they are: neofascists.

Fascism was a phenomenon which arose in Europe, particularly after the First World War, in the midst of the deepest economic crisis experienced by capitalism. Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, was one of the first to understand the threats fascism posed for the workers’ movement. He saw fascism as a specific response of the ruling class when capitalism faced a deep crisis and could no longer maintain control through bourgeois democracy alone. Unlike traditional military dictatorships, fascism mobilised the enraged petty bourgeoisie (middle class) and lumpenproletariat (the marginalised and unorganised) into mass movements to smash the organised working class.

Neofascism (different from fascism) thrives in times of economic crisis, much like its 20th-century predecessor. However, today’s variant is shaped by the crises generated by the failures of neoliberalism: rising inequality and climate catastrophe.

Unlike traditional dictatorships, which were openly authoritarian, neofascist regimes mobilise far-right nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and corporate-driven policies while maintaining the appearance of democratic institutions.

Trump’s return will accelerate these crises by rejecting environmental protections, intensifying fossil fuel-based reindustrialisation, reinforcing racial and ethnic scapegoating, and undermining democratic rule. This will further destabilise the Global South, including South Africa. Trump’s leadership will further embolden this global trend, aligning the US with other neofascist regimes such as those in Russia, India, and Israel.

South Africa’s vulnerabilities

It is likely that Trump’s actions against South Africa are just the start of ‘sanctioning’ South Africa, and we are economically and politically vulnerable. Tariffs, which are not just Trump’s favourite word but his preferred tactic to browbeat allies and foes alike, will be smacked on South Africa’s exports to the US. It is also likely that South Africa will lose duty-free access to the US under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA).

The US is an important export market for South Africa, accounting for about 9% of the country’s total exports in 2022. Unlike with China, South Africa’s biggest trading partner, a much greater amount of manufacturing goods are exported to the US, which gives the US market a strategic value beyond export volumes. Should the Trump administration impose tariffs on South African goods, it will have severe economic impacts, not least on employment.

The real danger facing South Africa isn’t just Trump’s tariff policies — those are merely symptoms. The greater threat lies in South Africa’s dependence on the United States for finance. The US is a major source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in South Africa, particularly in finance, manufacturing, and mining, and American companies like Ford, General Electric, and Coca-Cola.

More significantly, South Africa has a growing debt burden, a significant amount of which is denominated in US dollars. In the third quarter of 2024, South Africa’s total external debt of approximately $176.3 billion was owed to a diverse group of international creditors, including foreign governments, international financial institutions, and private lenders.

Recently, the servicing of this debt has become expensive as the result of US-based credit agencies having downgraded South Africa’s credit rating to junk status and because of rand depreciation against the dollar.

In this context, the US government can quite easily provoke a financial crisis by encouraging investors to take their capital out of the country. More threateningly, it could cut South Africa off from international credit exchanges, which are vital for facilitating trade flows.

Confronting Trumpism

This in no way implies that South Africa must lie down and accept Trump’s bullying. The current situation is an urgent wake-up call to abandon neoliberal economic policies that have made the economy so dependent and vulnerable to global capital.

We ought to take a leaf out of the book of JD Vance, now US Vice President and a key ideologue of MAGA’s neofascist playbook. In outlining the basis of US foreign policy, he articulated the critical role of reindustrialisation:

The most important part of American foreign policy is actually the strength of our domestic economy and the strength of our domestic population. If there is something that should worry all of us…It’s that China, because of the stupidity of Washington leaders over the past generation, is now arguably the most powerful industrial economy in the world. If we’re going to lose a war, it will be because we have allowed our primary rival to become arguably our most powerful industrial competitor.

Likewise, the reindustrialisation of the South African economy is the most important strategic response that needs to be engineered if South Africa is going to survive in an ascendant right-wing nationalist and protectionist world.

Reindustrialisation through meeting needs

Our reindustrialisation strategy must be directed at meeting the unmet basic needs of the vast majority of South Africans. Millions of South Africans lack the most basic of things to live a dignified life. Five million people are living in informal settlements without the provision of basic services, and there is a housing backlog of four million households. The government talks about making South Africa a construction site. It must not be a construction site for infrastructure to service business and attract foreign investors. It must be a construction site for a mass housing programme directed at housing the poor and the homeless. This would stimulate downstream industries (bricks, mortar, glass, tiles, furniture etc.) All these industries can be localised if correct trade policies are implemented.

Combined with this, a mass expansion of public transport for passengers and freight would see thousands of new railway lines, trains and buses built. The resultant demand for steel would be able to rescue our ailing steel industry, with important knock-ons for both upstream and downstream industries.

In turn, this would require the expansion of electricity generation. If this is progressively supplied by publicly owned renewable energy plants, a viable electrical industry can be established. Millions of jobs would be created, necessitating the expansion of food production. Through land reform and agrarian transformation, economic life would be invigorated in South Africa’s rural areas, providing political sustainability to this ambitious revitalisation plan.

But first, we must abandon neoliberal policies. Austerity, trade and financial liberalisation and high-interest rate policies, which currently shape South Africa’s macro-economic policies, would have to be reversed. So would the corporatisation and privatisation of state-owned enterprises and public services.

The resources to carry out such a programme can be mobilised from the inevitable widening of the tax base as more people are employed. Other interventions would include heavily taxing the financial sector, redirecting public funds (such as those under the control of the Public Investment Corporation), curbing capital outflow (illicit and licit), and the implementation of prescribed assets (requiring financial institutions to invest a proportion of assets in designated sectors).

Overcoming corruption and restoring the legitimacy of the public sector will require a thoroughgoing process of democratisation and popular control over public enterprises. None of this will happen without the organisation and mobilisation of a very broad mass movement, that can act as a counter-power to capital and the neoliberal state.