Editorial: Make diplomacy great again

‘Trump ambushes South African president,” read The Guardian’s lead headline on Wednesday night.

The attack was undoubtedly premeditated. But an ambush implies an element of surprise. Nothing about the White House meeting would have been shocking to anyone who has followed either the irrational line of genocide rhetoric, or watched how US President Donald Trump pounced on Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It’s now the modus operandi of the Oval Office theatre: the visitor is flayed in front of the press cameras, softened up before being dragged behind closed doors for the real discussions. 

The lights dimmed, a ready-to-go compilation of Kill the Boer echoed between the garish gold trimmings. Trump produced a stack of article printouts to accentuate the point.

“Death, death, death,” he pronounced.

Opinions have differed on how efficiently President Cyril Ramaphosa and his delegation conducted themselves.

But they did not take the bait, to their great credit. How infuriating it must have been to stay restrained as a fallacious narrative — until recently widely accepted as nothing more than a fringe conspiracy theory — was flung about with abandon by Trump.

The realpolitik argument is that their compliance, punctured occasionally by genteel clarifications, was the only option. Relations with the US are in great need of a “reset”, as Ramaphosa himself put it. 

Which doesn’t soften the agony of watching it play out in real time. That itself is the biggest takeaway from the charade. International relations have degenerated into this, whatever exactly this ugly, disappointing thing is.

No rational person should want to live in a world in which the president of a sovereign nation is compelled to prostrate themselves in front of another; or bring along their favourite golfers as if they are rare gifts to a feudal lord. And worst of all, to bite their tongue when confronted with statements they know to be a lie.

The masterclass of Trumpian politics is that focus is fleeting and issues are played off against one another. South Africa’s mission unwittingly became the latest reason to deflect concerns about the Qatari jet saga. 

Ramaphosa could only giggle uncomfortably as Trump derided the “terrible reporter” for asking about it — the tactic he has repeated whenever he has been pressed on the legal, ethical and diplomatic implications of accepting such a lavish gift from a foreign power.

We survived that circus this week. Now, how do we, along with the rest of the world, escape it? The answer is far from clear, but it is imperative that we begin searching for it. 

Let’s make diplomacy great again.