The EFF leader Julius Malema has warned that US President Donald Trump and his policies is a danger to the world and should be removed from power. 

Malema was addressing the party’s third Central Command Team (CCT) meeting in Bela Bela, Limpopo on Saturday. 

The CCT is the highest decision-making body in-between national people’s assemblies and the meeting took place against a backdrop of national turmoil, including the looming US 30% tariffs wall on South Africa’s exports.

Malema, who called for his party to force Africa to cut ties with imperialist powers, said the EFF would work with allies to remove Trump from office. 

Trump showed visuals of the firebrand chanting “shot the boer” – as he sought to substantiate false claims that there was a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to the Oval Office in May.

Trump hosted five leaders from Africa last month-Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal.

Malema said at the previous CCT meeting, the EFF had been positioned as an enemy of global imperialism and warned that fighting domestic and global capital could lead to political or personal destruction, starting with disinformation and escalating to invasion or assassination.

Just days after that warning, Trump identified the EFF as a threat during the meeting with Ramaphosa. Trump confronted Ramaphosa with baseless claims of white genocide and land seizures, screening EFF protests and labelling the party a danger.

“Today, members of the US Congress are demanding the release through legislation of what is referred to as the “Epstein Files”, which have become a growing concern for Trump and his administration and may lead to his impeachment and conviction”, said Malema on Saturday, adding that the EFF, which is a Marxist-Leninist and Fanonian organisation, has the goal to change the world, not to end it.

Malema said in order to effect change to the world, Trump’s reign as the US President must end.

“It is not only for us as the left and socialists to whom Trump is a threat, but even to the capitalist system itself because he is using its logic in an illiterate manner – as a result he will destroy capitalism inadvertently but he will kill any and all possibilities of socialist economic order as well,” he said.

‘Our economies are unequal due to historical dominance by the West of the global economy, and as a result trade barriers have been eased so that our markets and economies can grow – imposing tariffs on the infant economies of the global south is merely a method by Trump to create a global economy that depends solely on America, and as a result Trump poses a threat to the stability and existence of a global economy,’’ Malema said.

He added that leaders such as Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, criticised Trump’s diplomacy, Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev warned of retaliation, Iran struck Israel, and China’s President Xi Jinping inspired a US-free future. 

“While the world resists imperialism, African leaders humiliate themselves at the Oval Office. The EFF must force Africa to cut ties,” Malema added.

With Ramaphosa being one of the African leaders who also visited Trump, Malema said he was summoned for the purpose to discuss the EFF and to distance himself from the party and ‘kill the boer’, the liberation song born from his movement (the ANC). Malema said Ramaphosa failed to live up to the occasion. 

“He was summoned to discuss the EFF due to its position on land expropriation without compensation and firm opposition to the introduction of Starlink in South Africa if it undermines our laws on transformation and due to it posing a security threat.

“As the President of our nation shook in fear and mumbled as he was unable to defend sovereignty of our Constitutional court, Supreme Court of Appeals and Equality Court, the US launched an onslaught on our liberation history which he could not defend because he desperately wanted to disassociate with the EFF,’’ he said. 

He added that any claim that diplomatic relations are being mended behind closed doors has also proven to be untrue, as it has been revealed that presidential envoy, Mcebisi Jonas, has not been granted any audience by Washington, even though months have passed since his deployment. 

Meanwhile, the FW De Klerk’s foundation has added its voice in calling for South Africa to stop being overly reliant on America and look elsewhere for trade deals amid concerns over President Donald Trump’s 30% tariffs on exports.

In what could be seen as the country’s population banding together against the economic squeezing tariffs, the foundation echoed DA leader John Steenhuisen’s call for the country to spread its wings wider, looking for alternative markets across the world.  

Steenhuisen, in his capacity as Agriculture minister, said recently that the country was strengthening its trade alliances with the likes of Chile, Peru, and New Zealand “to jointly lobby for fair and stable trade treatment of fresh produce” through the Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters.

The foundation’s Ismail Joosub called for the strengthening of trading ties “with our BRICS partners and Africa”. 

The foundation was concerned about the South African Reserve Bank warning that the tariffs could cost the country around 100,000 jobs, “hitting our agriculture and automotive sectors the hardest”.

Additional reporting by Bongani Hans

manyane.manyane@inl.co.za   

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