Steenhuisen walks a political tightrope ahead of Trump meeting

Who would fancy being in DA leader John Steenhuisen’s shoes right now?

Like his government of national unity (GNU) boss Cyril Ramaphosa, he’s likely to be pilloried whichever course he takes in the meeting tomorrow at the White House with President Donald Trump.

As a minister in the GNU, he is expected to sing from the same hymn sheet as Ramaphosa and deny that there is a genocide of Afrikaners or that white people are being persecuted in South Africa.

Yet, if he does so, he will be turning his back on his own party, which has been one of the leading voices against the ANC for its race-based laws.

Perhaps even more than Ramaphosa, though, Steenhuisen could play a historic role at that meeting.

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He is white and, with the race-fixated White House, that virtually guarantees he will get treated more sympathetically than Ramaphosa.

That means he is in a unique position, with a foot in both South African ideological camps, to pour oil on the troubled waters of the Pretoria-Washington relationship.

He has the opportunity to acknowledge the fears of minorities in South Africa, while at the same time disabusing Trump of the belief there is an ongoing wholesale slaughter of these groups back at home.

As minister of agriculture, he can put it to Trump that this country needs to be part of an extension to the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa), because it will be those very white farmers who will be harmed most if the US cancels it as punishment for alleged ANC racism.

But, if he and Ramaphosa work together as a team, it will send positive messages – to both the Americans and South Africans – that a coalition government built on a nonracial foundation can actually work and lead this country out of the wilderness.

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