France’s decision to disinvite South Africa from the G7 Summit this year forces Africa’s economic powerhouse to carefully manage bilateral and multilateral ties to avoid another diplomatic storm with the US, according to local business leaders.
Kganki Matabane, CEO of the Black Business Council (BBC), said playing tit-for-tat with the US will not work for South Africa, and it would be better for the country to wait for US President Donald Trump’s term to run its course in 2028, after which the country will likely have a less hostile administration.
“The developments are very unfortunate. But as a country, we also need to choose our battles. We need to recognise that there’s a leader who is unpredictable, and we should just play a waiting game, because he’s not going to be there forever.”
The G7 Summit will be hosted by France in Évian-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, from June. While it is not an event South Africa would ordinarily participate in, the news stoked speculation that the snub was due to US political pressure.
The Trump administration has been hostile towards South Africa, imposing unilateral tariffs and falsely accusing the government of allowing or perpetrating the genocide of Afrikaners and illegally seizing white-owned farms.
Matabane said the BBC foresaw that Trump’s hostility towards the country would continue and that local business formations will take these risks into account. He said trade opportunities such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) are critical to South Africa’s trade diversification efforts “because we need to look at other markets, especially in the East and on the continent itself”.
A waiting game is the best option while we manage the situation.
— Kganki Matabane, Black Business Council CEO
He added: “We do have the AfCFTA, and we need to look at that as well and to see how we can use it. But the tit-for-tat is not going to work. A waiting game is the best option while we manage the situation.”
Adding to the tension between Pretoria and Washington, South Africa hosted the G20 Leaders Summit in November last year, which adopted a formal declaration without a US leader of equivalent official status present. This angered the White House and raised concerns that the US would not invite South Africa to the G20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December despite being a founding member.
Dr Stavros Nicolaou, member of the SA-France Business Council, said South Africa was not a member of the G7 and a disinvitation means “very little” for the trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Nicolaou, who is also Aspen Pharmacare group senior executive, said the company remained the country’s largest investor in France. “What’s critical here is to analyse the bilateral relationship between South Africa and France, and that remains very strong.
“Bilaterals are most important because you get a lot more done than in multilaterals. Bilaterals are more important from a trade perspective, because it’s there that you can get into the nitty-gritty.”
He said, regardless of whether South Africa attends the G7 summit, there was still a strong geopolitical relationship between the two countries. This was evidenced by the fact that France was lobbying the US to reinstate South Africa in the 2026 activities of the G20, Nicolaou said.
Antswisa Management Group CEO Miyelani Mkhabela said the broader positions of countries like France, Canada and the rest of the EU favour South Africa, meaning the country was indirectly represented in the meeting and its activities.
“I could easily say the Trump administration has a confrontational risk towards South Africa. It’s a deliberate confrontational risk to economics and trade. At the same time, South Africa is not a member of G7 ... we’re merely invited.”
He said the country should not regard this as a blow or a snub but should be more concerned about its participation in the G20 later this year. “South Africa is only part of the G20. I think what we need to be grateful about is that we have great lobby by President Cyril Ramaphosa to have friendships with other countries,” said Mkhabela.
“Thanks to these friendships with France and Canada, we were invited to events like the G7. South Africa not attending the G7 will never be a problem, even though it is an important platform to discuss trade, investment and the wars affecting us.”
Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said the news that the US denied putting pressure on France was good in the sense that South Africa was not in the US crosshairs in this instance — but it was bad news that France decided of its own volition not to invite South Africa, as it meant France regarded the country’s voice as moot.
“I don’t know if there was pressure on France to disinvite South Africa. There could have been, and if there was, could they have buckled? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure that, if there wasn’t pressure from the White House, France would have invited South Africa.”
Roodt said keeping the country on board the G20 could have angered Trump, and the French may have decided on their own that offending South Africa was less costly than offending the US. “It is possible that France experienced the pressure all by itself and buckled under pressure without letting the other countries know.
“That makes it clear that France and the other countries in the region are a bunch of cowards because they are simply not prepared to stand against the US when it takes a particular stance.”
Roodt said the latest controversy was an indication of “how far South Africa has fallen”.
Business Times
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