The exercise allegedly under way with the South African Navy and its Russia, China, and Iran counterparts could spell further troubles for relations with the United States.

Reports from Cape Town reveal that there is a joint exercise with foreign vessels largely thought to be from Russia, China, and Iran.

International relations expert Prof John Stremlau said while he has not seen reports about the joint SA naval exercises with China, Russia, and Iran, he feared that they will play into US President Donald Trump’s hand.

“He is a ‘multipolar’ guy, it seems to me. He moved against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and will now try him in New York for (the) drug deal, while pardoning another Latin former president serving a 45-year sentence for committing the crime of supporting narcotics smuggling into the US. What matters to me is that South Africa not cooperate with the Trump administration.

“The Minister of Home Affairs (Dr Leon Schreiber), rightly deported seven Kenyans for illegally working in South Africa while on tourist visas.

“The fact that they had been hired by the US embassy to process Afrikaners seeking refugee status in the US while Trump expels millions of Hispanics and other people of colour, was a neat diplomatic reminder of Trump’s racism but was done with a solid defensible diplomatic justification,” Stremlau explained.

He added that countering Trump’s extremism and autocratic tendencies is the wrong way.

“South Africa should be quietly building links to Democrats and show its commitment to multilateralism as it brilliantly did at the 2025 G20 Summit in Johannesburg, despite the Trump boycott.

“SA faces no imminent security threats by the US or anyone else. It should maintain good relations with all countries but it doesn’t, in my view, gain anything by participating in the naval exercises.”

Defence analyst Helmoed Heitman said as a general principle, exercises with other forces are good but there is always something to learn and personnel enjoy interaction with those of other countries.

“Even more so for navies. All sailors have a common enemy – the sea. And ships of different navies may have to cooperate in a disaster situation or to counter piracy, so it is good to understand each other’s drills and procedures,” he said.

Heitman explained that “China is a major trading partner, a major maritime trading nation, and a growing naval power, so exercising with their navy makes sense”.

“But we do need to keep in mind that just about all of their neighbours see them as an aggressive bully. The real problem is ties with Iran and Russia. Both are also seen as bullies by most of their neighbours, and Russia is clearly the aggressor in Ukraine.

“Worse in this context is that both are irrelevant to us economically and strategically, while ties to them antagonise countries that are very important to us economically, particularly Europe and the US,” he said.

Heitman continued: “Even worse, both are in decline. So there is not even some future benefit. Bottom line, exercising with Russia and Iran is deeply stupid. It will antagonise key trading partners for no benefit to SA at all.”

He added that the good news is that South Africa is not very important to any of the countries that are at daggers drawn with each other.

“Our biggest risk is that we sink ourselves as a result of poor foreign and economic policy decisions. We need people at the top who are practical and pragmatic, and understand how economies work,” Heitman said.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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