The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday advanced legislation that would order a comprehensive review of bilateral relations with South Africa in support of the Trump administration’s efforts to retaliate against Cape Town for its recent actions related to Israel and South Africa’s broader policy of nonalignment in the deepening competition over global influence.
The panel approved a dozen bills, some with overwhelming bipartisan support, including one to bolster trilateral cooperation between the elected legislatures of South Korea, Japan and the United States, which advanced in a 47-3 vote. Others were more contentious and garnered narrower margins, such as the South Africa legislation, approved as amended 34-16.
That bill, sponsored by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, would order an assessment of whether any South African government officials and members of the Black-majority African National Congress — the political party that has dominated the country’s government since its first post-apartheid elections in 1994 — should be sanctioned under U.S. anti-corruption laws.
