South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday received the diplomatic credentials of the new US ambassador, as relations between the two countries languish at a low ebb.<\/p>\n
Brent Bozell, a right-wing media critic and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, took up the post in February but got off to a rocky start with remarks on South Africa’s racial policies and court decisions.<\/p>\n
In a brief ceremony at the Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guest House in the capital, Bozell, alongside his spouse, was welcomed with a guard of honour before he handed over his credentials to Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n
“Before I arrived here, I cannot tell you how many people told me that in short order, I’d fall in love with the country. It’s only taken two months and I can confirm that has happened,” Bozell said.<\/p>\n
“We are two nations with great shared values and interests… It’s my goal in my time here to build on those shared interests, to build on self-respect, to build on our shared values, to take our two nations to places they’ve never been,” the 70-year-old envoy added.<\/p>\n
Nineteen other envoys, including those from the partially recognised Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Haiti, and Cuba, also presented their papers.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa underscored the expectations for diplomats to respect their host country’s sovereignty, exercise discretion and raise concerns through quiet, constructive channels rather than “confrontational” public criticism.<\/p>\n
“It is this approach that I believe builds strong relationships between nations and helps to advance the interests of our respective countries based on mutual respect,” he said.<\/p>\n
Pretoria-Washington relations have become strained over a range of issues, from South Africa’s genocide case against US ally Israel to Trump’s disputed claims that white Afrikaners are being persecuted.<\/p>\n
Last month, Bozell was summoned to explain “undiplomatic remarks” after he labelled an apartheid-era chant, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,” as “hate speech” and criticised policies meant to empower black South Africans in his first public address.<\/p>\n
While controversial, South African courts have ruled the chant does not constitute hate speech and should be considered in the context of the struggle against white-minority rule that ended in 1994.<\/p>\n
The new ambassador later appeared to backtrack, saying the US government respected the independence and findings of South Africa’s judiciary.<\/p>\n
Washington expelled Pretoria’s ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, in March last year after he criticised Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. A replacement has yet to be named.<\/p>\n
Washington’s previous ambassador, Reuben Brigety, resigned in November 2024, just before Trump took office.<\/p>\n
South Africa is the United States’ largest trading partner on the African continent with more than 500 US businesses and 30,000 US citizens based in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday received the diplomatic credentials of the new US ambassador, as relations between the two countries languish at a low ebb. Brent Bozell, a right-wing media critic and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, took up the post in February but got off to a rocky start with remarks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":11,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AFP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[5021,218,122],"class_list":["post-20455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-brent-bozell","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20456,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20455\/revisions\/20456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}