United States President Donald Trump wants South Africa to once again become non-aligned and strengthen trade relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the message from the United States Ambassador to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III, who spoke at the Biznews Conference in Hermanus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have spoken to President Donald Trump. He had a simple request: \u2018I want South Africa to become non-aligned again\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not too much to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the Trump Administration values its relationship with South Africa and considers it among the Top 10 countries in terms of importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bozell added that he came to South Africa with a positive tone to lower the temperature of the deteriorating relationship between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will continue to move in that direction and look for partners in the government, because we have them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, recent statements and actions by South Africa continued to sour he relationship between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe statements from the government and the things which have happened over the past week are not helpful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInsulting President Donald Trump on the eve of coming to our country is not a good sign. It is not at all helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that sending condolences letters to Iran about one of the world\u2019s biggest terrorists being taken down is also not a good sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bozell said there will be tough discussions ahead regarding these issues, but he is hopeful of a positive outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHopefully, South Africa will understand that it should not align itself with international pariahs like Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States Ambassador to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III, revealed the most important thing President Donald Trump wants from the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":853471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23640,10849,22120],"class_list":["post-853469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-biznews-conference","tag-donald-trump","tag-leo-brent-bozell-iii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853472,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853469\/revisions\/853472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}