South African minister clashes with US ambassador over dialogue

Leo Brent Bozell III, the US ambassador to South Africa. ©  AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr. South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told the US ambassador to “get out of the kitchen” if he is tired of dialogue, amid tensions over Washington’s demands to scrap black economic empowerment policies and roll back land reform.

The remarks, published by the Sunday Times, followed South Africa’s third formal diplomatic protest against Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III since he took up his post in February. Lamola said the envoy’s public interventions amount to interference in South Africa’s domestic affairs.

Lamola was responding to Bozell’s September 16 post on X declaring that the time for further dialogue is over and warning of “severe” consequences. The ambassador said newly announced US visa restrictions on South African officials and others accused of enabling uncompensated land seizures, racial discrimination, and incitement to violence against minority groups, including Afrikaners, are “only the first step in a series of escalatory measures.”

“You can’t have a diplomat who says the time for talking is over… It’s our job to talk. So if you can’t talk as a diplomat and you cannot dialogue, get out of the kitchen,” Lamola told the Sunday Times.

Bozell responded on Sunday, describing Lamola’s comments as another personal insult directed at a US leader. “And then the South African government wonders why relations are collapsing,” he wrote on X.

So here we go again. Another Minister Lamola personal insult aimed at an American leader (this time me) which, when denounced (which I’m doing now), will result in a demarche with a lecture about being “undiplomatic.” And then the South African government wonders why relations are collapsing.

The confrontation is the latest sign of deteriorating relations between Pretoria and Washington since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. The two governments have clashed over land reform, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) requirements, Pretoria’s ties with Russia, China, and Iran, and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Trump ordered a halt to US aid in February 2025, citing alleged discrimination against Afrikaners and South Africa’s foreign policy. Washington expelled South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool the following month and has since announced targeted visa restrictions.

Read more Are white farmers really persecuted? What’s behind the US-South Africa spat Pretoria first summoned Bozell in March over “undiplomatic remarks” after he criticized a court ruling on ‘Kill the Boer’, an apartheid-era struggle chant. He subsequently expressed regret and said he respects the independence of South Africa’s judiciary. Bozell has also argued that B-BBEE requirements obstruct billions of dollars in potential American investment. The policy seeks to expand black participation in business ownership, management, and economic opportunities following decades of exclusion under apartheid.

In an interview published on Sunday, South African Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni rejected the demand to abandon the B-BBEE. “Redress is a constitutional obligation, not a bargaining chip,” she said, arguing that scrapping it would preserve apartheid’s economic outcomes.

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