South Africa decision angers Trump

South Africa has launched an investigation into its choice to host Iranian warships off the coast of Cape Town after rumours of Donald Trump’s displeasure.

South Africa chose to include Iran in a series of joint drills that also included the Chinese, Russian and United Arab Emirates navies. The choice to include Iran drew the ire of the U.S., and South Africa’s defence ministry subsequently released a statement announcing it had launched an investigation into how the decision was made without the proper consultation.

In a statement posted on X, the U.S. Embassy in South Africa denounced the decision to include Iran in the training drill, citing Iran’s violent actions against protesters in Tehran. Iranian security forces have killed more than 2,600 people since the protests started on December 28.

The announcement from South Africa is an attempt to salvage the country's damaged relationship with the U.S. – a relationship that plummeted after Donald Trump took office. The drills in question were led by China and organized under the BRICS bloc of developing nations. South Africa has been a member of BRICS since its invitation from China in 2010. The BRICS group was initially created to counter U.S. and Western dominance of the global economy, but it is often used by China and Russia as a forum to criticize the West. South Africa made several critical statements about Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration in 2025, and Trump has since made many statements degrading South Africa as a country.

While initially Iran was supposed to only attend the drill as an observer, South Africa is now investigating just how involved in the drills Iran’s warships were. Iran sent two warships to attend the drill, but news media discovered a third warship present as well. Three warships are more than necessary for an ‘observer’. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has not commented on the drill, and it’s unclear why South Africa decided to host it in the first place. While South Africa claims it is a neutral, non-aligned foreign entity open to diplomatic discussions with Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized South Africa’s relationship with the country.  

Tensions between South Africa and the U.S. have tightened significantly over the last two months, and were tightened again by Donald Trump’s comments about South Africa in October. Trump claimed that South Africa was committing a genocide against its white minority, the Afrikaner people, in order to seize their land. Trump also denied South African apartheid and claimed that white people were never in charge of South Africa. South Africa has a long and violent history of apartheid, and freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela worked for years to free native South Africans from European settlers. Donald Trump’s claims about the Afrikaner people are baseless and not rooted in fact. While it’s clear that South Africa is attempting to smooth over some of the bumps in its relationship with the U.S., it’s also clear that the threat of Donald Trump is actively on the minds of South African officials.