In the US Congress, there is a call to move the AGOA US-African trade summit from South Africa to another country — as lawmakers say, due to South Africaʼs "deepening military relations" with Russia.
Reuters writes about it.
South Africa plans to host a summit in Johannesburg to discuss a special trade program between Washington and African countries.
In a letter to the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and other officials, the members of Congress said that South Africa could lose its trade privileges with the US due to its ties with the Russian Federation, and also noted that they were concerned "that the holding of the AGOA forum in 2023 in Johannesburg would be an indirect confirmation of the harmful South Africaʼs support for Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine".
At the same time, Washington has not yet decided to move the summit to another place.
- In December of last year, the Western media wrote that in December 2022, the ship “Lady R” was loaded with weapons at the Simonstown naval base, which delivered them to Russia. In May 2023, the US ambassador to South Africa directly stated that South Africa had transferred ammunition to Russia. The South African presidentʼs spokesman then promised to take this information into account. President Cyril Ramaphosa himself created an independent commission to investigate possible arms deliveries to Russia.
- South Africa is considering the possibility of moving the BRICS summit to China in order to avoid the arrest of Putin on the warrant of the International Criminal Court. On May 30, it became known that the South African Republic informed that it would grant diplomatic immunity to the participants of two meetings during the BRICS summit, but these immunities do not cancel any warrants from international tribunals.