Roelf Meyer will change the South African ambassador who was expelled from the US by President Donald Trump in 2025.
Printed On 15 Apr 2026
South Africa has appointed Roelf Meyer, who helped negotiate the tip of white minority rule in his nation within the Nineteen Nineties, as the subsequent ambassador to the US, in accordance with native media.
Meyer’s appointment is seen as an indication that Pretoria is aiming to enhance its relations with Washington following a “turbulent 12 months”, in accordance with the South African Broadcasting Company.
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South Africa has gone with out diplomatic illustration in Washington, DC, since March 2025, when US President Donald Trump expelled Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool for his criticism of the Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) motion.
Posting on social media on the time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and Trump.
Rubio’s put up linked to a narrative by US conservative information web site Breitbart that reported on a chat Rasool gave on a webinar organised by a South African suppose tank. Rasool had spoken in tutorial phrases of the Trump administration’s crackdown on variety and fairness programmes, in addition to immigration, and talked about the potential of a future US the place white individuals would now not be within the majority.
Trump final 12 months additionally issued an government order freezing most international help to South Africa amid the nation’s authorized motion on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice over Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the passage of a controversial South African regulation geared toward correcting historic racial disparities in land possession.
Tensions escalated additional when Trump then launched a refugee programme for white South Africans, whom the US president claims face government-led persecution of their house nation.
Meyer, 78, is a seasoned negotiator with expertise working beneath stress. As a member of South Africa’s white Afrikaans minority, he as soon as served as a minister beneath the apartheid Nationalist Occasion authorities.
He rose to prominence within the Nineteen Nineties, throughout the closing days of apartheid, because the Nationalist Occasion held talks with the African Nationwide Congress (ANC) to finish segregation and white minority rule. The talks paved the way in which for South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.
Because the chief negotiator, Ralph had turn into acquainted with South Africa’s present president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was then an ANC negotiator.
Meyer himself later joined the ANC in 2006.
He’s set to take up the put up as US ambassador as soon as all protocols are full in Washington, DC, in accordance with Ramaphosa’s workplace.
