South Africa Sends the Man Who Negotiated the End of Apartheid to Washington as Its New Ambassador
President Ramaphosa appointed Roelf Meyer, 78, who served as the apartheid government's chief negotiator opposite Ramaphosa himself in the 1990s. The post has been vacant for over a year after Trump expelled the previous ambassador for calling MAGA a 'supremacist instinct.'
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Roelf Meyer -- the apartheid government's chief negotiator during the transition to democracy in the 1990s -- as the country's new ambassador to the United States. The appointment fills a diplomatic vacancy that has lasted more than a year.
Meyer, 78, is best known for leading the National Party's negotiating team during the 1993-94 CODESA talks that ended white minority rule. His counterpart across the table: Cyril Ramaphosa, then the ANC's chief negotiator. Three decades later, the two men who dismantled apartheid through negotiation are collaborating again -- this time to repair South Africa's relationship with Washington.
Why the post was empty
South Africa has had no ambassador in Washington since March 14, 2025, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool persona non grata. Rubio called Rasool "a race-baiting politician who hates America" after Rasool said on an academic webinar that the MAGA movement was partly a response to "a supremacist instinct."
The expulsion -- highly unusual in US diplomacy -- left South Africa without representation in Washington during a period of escalating tensions. The US has pressed South Africa over its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, its alignment with the BRICS bloc, its Black economic empowerment policies, and unverified claims about land seizures from white Afrikaner farmers. South African finance officials have been excluded from recent G20 meetings in Washington.
Why Meyer
Meyer's appointment is a calculated move on multiple levels. As a white Afrikaner who served in the apartheid-era cabinet as Defence Minister, he defuses the Trump administration's framing around the treatment of Afrikaner farmers -- a talking point that has driven much of the bilateral friction. International relations expert Phiwokuhle Mnyandu called the appointment a "masterstroke" for this reason.
But Meyer is no simple concession to Washington's preferences. After the NP dissolved, he co-founded the United Democratic Movement with ANC veteran Bantu Holomisa in the 1990s and later joined the ANC itself. He has spent recent years in international mediation work and, according to Ramaphosa's office, has already been interfacing with US stakeholders on Capitol Hill.
Ramaphosa described Meyer as "a seasoned and capable envoy" and emphasized the strategic stakes: "The United States is the largest economy in the world, and it still plays an important role" in South Africa's economic interests.
Domestic backlash
The appointment has drawn criticism from multiple directions. The Economic Freedom Fighters called it "tone deaf" and an affront to South Africa's democratic history. AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel dismissed it as "ANC cadre deployment" to the US embassy. Holomisa, Meyer's former political partner, defended the choice, saying Meyer has "already faced the hardest tests" -- comparing the Washington posting favorably to negotiating the end of apartheid.
Meyer must still formally present credentials to President Trump before his accreditation is complete.