By Flip Buys, Chairman of the Solidarity Movement
Political considerations outweigh economic factors when it comes to US tariffs. Senior ANC leaders such as Fikile Mbalula, ANC Secretary-General, and Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, continue to hurl insults at the US instead of working to strengthen diplomatic relations.
This despite clear warnings from US leaders that “you’re not going to insult America for free”.
Their overt political animosity towards the US government is deepening South Africa’s economic woes and driving up unemployment. Their efforts to solve the ANC’s political problems are poised to lead to economic crises that will mostly affect their voters.
Meanwhile, the ANC refuses to take the US’s insistence on necessary political reforms seriously and treats it simply as an economic issue.
The ANC is clearly stuck in the Cold War era. They continue to cling to the anti-Western political policies and alliances of the past, despite the economic crisis they are causing.
Their narrow-minded racial policy is much more about their historical anti-Western stance than about redress. Their hostility extends to bullying white citizens of South Africa as part of their deep-seated resentment at the West.
The ANC is trying in vain to resist the winds of change, clinging to the illusion that they are still the darling of the world. That is why they are constantly and unnecessarily picking fights with a superpower. This approach is bound to have grave consequences, and they will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
Sooner or later, the ANC will realise: The past will not return, the present cannot be ignored, and the future will not fix itself.
