Imperialist Ruse: Ramaphosa’s Washington Visit and the Palestine Frontline by Staff Writer

In mid-May 2025 President Cyril Ramaphosa flew to Washington, D.C., under the official banner of a “reset” of trade and diplomatic ties. State releases touted bilateral economic deals and “improved trade terms”. But as observers immediately noted, the backdrop was anything but routine. The Trump administration had slapped tariffs on South African exports and invoked a bizarre refugee resettlement order, while South Africa had just hauled Israel before the International Court of Justice for alleged genocide in Gaza. In practice the trip became less about tractors or trade deficits than about geopolitics and pressure on Pretoria’s Palestine policy. In fact, analysts pointed out that discussions were sure to “touch on South Africa’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict”. An insider memorably called the whole affair “a high-stakes act of political supplication” – driven by Washington’s demands and Trump’s anger – rather than any genuine equal exchange. In short, the Reset narrative was a cover: the real centre of the talks was Palestine and imperialist pressure, not national development.

Ramaphosa as Bourgeois Comprador

From a Marxist perspective, these contradictions are no surprise. Ramaphosa is a classic comprador bourgeois leader – he straddles the interests of local capital and foreign capital, forced to mouth anti-imperialist solidarity even as he kowtows to imperial masters. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution warned that in “late-developing capitalist countries” the bourgeoisie cannot truly advance industry or national development. Ramaphosa’s class origin – a wealthy businessman-turned-politician – means he can only deliver crumbs to the people while placating foreign investors. Once in power, such a leader inevitably aligns with global capital. As Lenin showed, the era of monopoly capitalism produces a world order where a “small number of financially ‘powerful’ states” dominate the rest. Today the United States sits atop that hierarchy. Ramaphosa’s Washington gambit fits Lenin’s picture perfectly: a dependent state leader begging favors under the guns of imperialism.

Kwame Nkrumah warned years ago that formal independence often masks neo-colonial reality: “the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system … is directed from outside”. This is South Africa’s predicament under Ramaphosa. He may speak eloquently about national liberation, but his policies – inviting U.S. investment, courting weapons deals, appeasing Wall Street – are shaped by foreign finance capital. In fact, even on the world stage Ramaphosa theatrically invoked anti-apartheid rhetoric only to turn around and quietly negotiate with Israel’s sponsors. At the UN he had thundered that Palestinians face “half a century of apartheid” by Israel and urged the ICJ to prevent “acts of genocide” against Gaza. Back home he promises solidarity. Yet in Washington he is forced to show deference to Israel’s patrons. Trotsky and Lenin would see this as the inevitable outcome: the local bourgeoisie ultimately capitulates to imperialism, leaving genuine revolutionary progress to the working class alone.

Palestine: The True Centre

Behind the trade veils, Palestine was clearly the subtext of the visit. Ramaphosa’s team arrived with the weight of South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel looming large. U.S. officials know South Africa’s legal challenge – filed in late 2023 – accuses Israel of atrocities in Gaza. Ramaphosa’s own speeches have linked Israel’s actions to apartheid, proclaiming “we South Africans know what apartheid looks like … we will not remain silent”. Yet Trump’s White House was signaling the opposite: in the days before the meeting Trump granted asylum to dozens of white South African farmers, echoing the baseless “white genocide” trope, and demanded that Ramaphosa give guarantees on land reform. In Washington, Ramaphosa would have to face an administration deeply hostile to Palestinian rights. Indeed, reporters noted that Ramaphosa’s office described the trip as a “platform to reset the strategic relationship” with the U.S., but in reality the American side aimed to extract commitments that South Africa break from its Palestinian solidarity. An analysis in IOL lamented that South Africa’s “principled stance on Palestine” loomed over the talks and reduced the visit to an act of supplication.

Ramaphosa’s own words underscore the contradiction. Just months earlier he had called on world courts to stop Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians and insisted that a sovereign Palestinian state is “the only lasting solution” in the Middle East. Yet here he was in the Oval Office smiling for the cameras. The dialectical reality is stark: he must publicly perform radical internationalism at UN forums but privately placate the imperial order. This split cannot be resolved – it shows the hypocrisy of his foreign policy. As the China Daily reported on the eve of the visit, Ramaphosa was going to Washington “to negotiate improved trade terms and reset diplomatic ties”, while U.S. media anticipated he would also press for investigations into alleged “genocide” claims against Israel. In other words, Palestine was the elephant in the room, but Ramaphosa was forced to clothe the conversation in corporate speak. This is the very definition of contradictory class politics.

The Corporate Delegation

If words fail to reveal class, deeds do not. Ramaphosa brought a delegation that combined ministers with the richest individuals in South Africa. He took along Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs ministers and the country’s richest man, Johann Rupert, a billionaire businessman deeply tied to global capital. Rupert – heir to the luxury goods empire and a stalwart of the old white elite – represents the opposite of revolutionary change. His presence at the White House sends a clear class message: this meeting is for big business, not for workers or peasants. Leftist critics had no illusions. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) denounced having Rupert on the trip as “spitting in the face of our democracy”. (They even noted, mordantly, that Elon Musk would not bother to attend – although he too was described by the EFF as “the same coin” of racist capitalist arrogance.)

This spectacle confirms Lenin’s insight that imperialism fuses domestic and foreign oligarchs. South African capitalists like Rupert see their interests in the U.S., so they travel with the president to oil deals and investment talks. Ramaphosa’s revolution talk rings hollow while his inner circle includes men who profit from exploitation and apartheid’s legacy. The integration of soccer and golf stars (Ernie Els, Retief Goosen) and figures like Rupert into diplomacy shows that “state policy is directed from outside” – directed by capitals that serve only profit. In short, Ramaphosa’s ruling bloc is neither nationalist nor socialist; it is comprador, at ease in the imperial system. Trotsky would say only workers can break this, because the bourgeoisie will always side with imperialism when push comes to shove.

Imperialism and Disinformation

The ideological battlefields of 2025 are not only boardrooms and courtrooms, but also social media. Tech moguls like Elon Musk have become propaganda lieutenants of the Far Right, and their platforms spew imperialist disinformation. Already in May 2025 Musk’s own AI chatbot had been caught parroting the “white genocide” conspiracy about South Africa as fact. In unrelated contexts Musk’s Grok bot was “instructed by [its] creators” to push the line that white South Africans faced a systematic genocide. This far-right myth – a vile excuse for racist violence – has indeed been “mainstreamed by figures such as Musk and [Fox’s] Tucker Carlson”. The result is to poison public opinion and distract from real issues; white supremacists now claim the moral high ground while Palestinians truly suffer.

Musk’s platforms also warp the Israel-Palestine narrative. The Guardian reported that on X (Twitter) Musk directly recommended accounts “that have posted ‘wrong and unverifiable things’” about the Israel-Hamas war, even after thousands of people had reposted propaganda and antisemitic content. The evidence is clear: Musk’s network amplifies Hamas-hatred and confuses honest coverage. When a billionaire censors truth and broadcasts lies, the masses must struggle that much harder to learn the facts. We must wage a mass education campaign to expose these lies. Lenin taught that imperialism not only conquers armies but also seizes minds with culture and tech. Today, rejecting Musk’s disinformation is part of anti-imperialist struggle. We must explain that the “white genocide” scare is a racist fantasy, and that support for Palestinians is not a charity or symbolic gesture but a matter of life, death, and global justice.

Revolutionary Solidarity and Resistance

We face a critical moment. Ramaphosa’s Washington performance laid bare the class reality of the South African state: deep inside its halls sit the scions of apartheid capitalists and foreign financiers, while on TV he prattles about solidarity. As Trotsky admonished, we must not trust a bureaucratic bourgeoisie to lead us out of neo-colonial chains. We agree with Nkrumah that independence under capitalism is a “sham” if policy is guided by outsiders. And we heed Lenin that the final stage of capitalism demands global resistance: we cannot allow our country to be a pawn in imperial games.

In practice, this means mobilizing on multiple fronts. Workers, students and communities must educate themselves on imperialist strategy – exposing how U.S. tariffs or refugee orders are leverage to force politics at home. We must build solidarity networks with Palestinians that go beyond statements: boycotts of Israeli apartheid goods, support for pro-Palestinian candidates, and material aid wherever possible. On the information front, we must counterspeak on social media, publishing truthful accounts of South African and Palestinian struggles to drown out Musk-endorsed lies. Those who claim “white genocide” are the racists; we brand them as the enemies of working-class unity.

The time for half-measures is over. Ramaphosa’s double-talk has been caught out. His elite puppet show in Washington should galvanize us, not lull us, into complacency. In the spirit of Marx, Trotsky, Nkrumah and the centuries of African resistance behind them, we must recognize that only our own organized power can break the chains of neo-colonialism. Let every campus, union hall and township become a school of anti-imperialist critique. Let the slogan ring out: “Our solidarity with Palestine is material, not symbolic!” The reset was just a reset of imperial domination; now it’s our turn to rally, educate and resist – for Pan-African liberation and socialist revolution.

Sources: Official statements and news reports on the visit; the EFF’s critique of the Rupert delegation; analysis of imperialist ideology; Ramaphosa’s UN remarks on Palestine; tech press on disinformation; IOL commentary on the visit.