Cyril poked the eye of the bear - Col. Chris Wyatt

Loading player...
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa poked “the bear in the eye” and gave “the middle finger” to the US when he signed the Land Expropriation Bill. This was the reaction from US inteligence analyst Retired Colonel Chris Wyatt to the announcement by President Donald Trump that he was cutting US funding for South Africa. Reacting to subsequent news that Ramaphosa was looking forward to meeting Trump, Colonel Wyatt said: “But he wasn't asking or hoping to meet with Trump 24 hours ago. Now, was he? Isn't that strange how one tweet changes the entire game? So, you know, Trump is playing three dimensional chess and the ANC is playing checkers. Who do you think is going to win.” Col. Wyatt maintains that South Africa also doesn’t deserve the benefits of the AGOA - and charges that the African National Congress (ANC) “runs around like there are no consequences to their actions”.  He predicts there are tough times ahead for South Africa. “…We finally have a new sheriff in town who is not going to let America be taken for suckers…the ANC is ignoring us and we're giving you tons of resources and money and there's a risk to this. So I think what's happening here is that Trump has put down a shot across the bow to warn the ANC that we won't tolerate this.”
3 Feb 2025 8AM English South Africa Investing · Business News

Other recent episodes

BN Daybreak: Iran war oil surge; Apple sues OpenAI; Endres on SA's fixed investment woes

In today's BizNews Daybreak we cover the escalating US-Iran conflict and its impact on soaring crude oil prices. In South Africa, Dr. John Endres critiques low fixed investment rates, SARU faces backlash over overpriced Springbok tickets, and over 53,000 undocumented foreign nationals are successfully repatriated. Finally, Apple hits OpenAI with…
13 Jul 11PM 18 min

BizNews Edge: Why the IRR's John Endres is more bullish on SA than Britain

John Endres, CEO of the Institute for Race Relations, tells BizNews that the elite consensus defending BEE is cracking, even as its beneficiaries defend it loudest. He points to the Starlink saga - blocked partly over empowerment shareholding while a pricier, slower rival wins state favour - as proof the…
13 Jul 8AM 24 min

A world-first: the bond that pays out when nature wins

In this BizNews interview, Irakli Rekhviashvili sits down with the three people behind FirstRand's R2.5 billion Cape Water Performance-Based Bond, the first time a commercial bank anywhere in the world has tied a bond's payout to nature. The Nature Conservancy's Louise Stafford traces it to 2018, when Cape Town's dams…
12 Jul 8AM 15 min