Ramaphosa responding to United States’ five demands on South Africa
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to respond to Donald Trump’s five demands of South Africa, which were communicated to the presidency by the US ambassador earlier this year.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, confirmed to Daily Maverick that the President would reply to Trump, although he could not provide a timeline.
The intention to respond has also made its way through economists’ desks, with Investec Chief Economist Annabel Bishop noting that the anticipated response has serious implications.
On 28 August, Ramaphosa met with the United States Ambassador to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III, at the President’s official residence, Mahlamba Ndlopfu, in Tshwane, Gauteng.
According to the Presidency, the meeting was intended to provide an opportunity to strengthen and recalibrate South Africa–United States relations.
The engagement comes as South Africa and the United States continue to navigate a wide-ranging bilateral relationship encompassing diplomatic, economic and international issues.
While there are few details on the topics of the meeting between the two countries, a diplomatic source told Daily Maverick they included US President Donald Trump’s “five asks”.
These five demands relate to those previously communicated to Ramaphosa in June 2025, and again in March of this year.
In his address in March 2026, Bozell said the United States’ position has been very firm, and that he wasn’t going to tiptoe around issues the US views as critical to continued relations with South Africa.
“We put together five asks. We put them forward to the South African government. We’ve been waiting for almost a year for a response, and as I’ve made clear in meetings that I’ve had, we’re running out of patience,” he said.
“We believe that it becomes a statement by the South African government when it doesn’t want to respond to simple questions that we have.”
These are achievable, practical and beneficial to both Americans and South Africans
The five “asks” reflect the same demands put forward last year, with the added demand of non-alignment.
The first is to protect rural communities from violence, referring to the globally publicised farm attacks. In 2025, the US wanted this to become a priority crime focus.
Another ask is to condemn rhetoric that incites hatred and glorifies violence, referring to the infamous “kill the boer” chant. The US wants the government to publicly condemn this.
Trump also demanded that appropriation policies include fair and clear compensation standards, referring to the government’s move to normalise “nil” compensation in new expropriation laws.
Additionally, Trump wants the mandatory surrender of ownership or control over corporate decision-making as a cost of doing business, citing South Africa’s strict BEE policies.
The last of the asks is to end South Africa’s association with Iran and enemies of the United States, and become a non-aligned state as it purports to be.
“These are achievable, practical and beneficial to both Americans and South Africans,” Bozell said.
Bozell characterised the “kill the boer” chant as a “war chant”, and said that he considers it hate speech.
Regarding BEE, he said that broad-based black economic empowerment is designed to expand opportunity and correct historic injustice, which are important goals.
However, “when those policies are structured in ways that introduce challenges to ownership or create complex compliance requirements or are clouded in charges of corruption, investors begin to reassess risk,” he said.
The ambassador said the five “asks” generally address the business environment in South Africa and issues of safety and social cohesion.
Politically, however, he said that the United States also wants South Africa to become non-aligned, with concerns around the country’s “growing engagement with some of America’s greatest adversaries”.
He also singled out the African National Congress (ANC), flagging a “growing antagonism” between the once-majority party and Washington.
“These issues shape investor confidence. They shape strategic trust, and they shape the trajectory of our bilateral relationship,” he said.
“When businesses believe their property rights may be uncertain, when policy frameworks create unpredictability instead of clarity, and when strategic alignments appear to drift towards regimes that do not share our democratic values, common ground becomes harder to sustain.”
“Honest partners must be able to say this out loud,” he said.
In light of this development, Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop warned that the meeting and Ramaphosa’s expected response should not be taken lightly.
“While South Africa has seen its AGOA trade privileges with the US renewed, they can be revoked,” she said.
She added that the US has previously imposed economic sanctions on enemy countries.
Fortunately for South Africa, whatever threat of US restrictions that exists is targeted at individuals, not the country as a whole. They are also not seen as permanent.
“Very severe actions taken by the Trump administration can often be rolled back,” she said.
Another consolation is that the extremes of these threats are also not currently seen as likely.
“The extreme—not currently likely—risk is of asset seizure, withdrawal of US companies from South Africa, a ban on US bank lending to the country, and a drop in portfolio investment,” she said.
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