After retiring from politics in 2024, Pandor was granted multiple-entry visitor’s visa for short-term stays in the United States
As the United States (US) changed its heart and warmed to the G20’s participation in Johannesburg, South Africa, amid 11th-hour talks, former International Relations minister Naledi Pandor has had her US visa revoked by the consulate.
Pandor, who is also the chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said she was informed of the decision in an email from the United States Consulate this week, despite having travelled to the US on multiple occasions.
After retiring from politics in 2024, Pandor was granted a multiple-entry visitor’s visa for short-term stays in the US.
US Visa revoked
Pandor, who returned from her most recent visit to the US this week, told The Citizen that the US Consulate did not provide any reasons for revoking her visa.
“I received an email indicating my visa has been revoked. I have no further details.”
The Citizen has contacted the US Consulate for comment. This will be included in the story once received.
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Madiba a ‘troublemaker’
In July 2025, Pandor delivered the keynote address at the United Nations in New York, calling on leaders, institutions, and individuals to “make good trouble” in pursuit of a more just world.
“While we all, with great affection, refer to President Mandela’s first name as ‘Nelson’, the name that he was actually given at birth was ‘Rolihlahla’. In isiXhosa, which was Mandela’s mother tongue, the colloquial meaning of Rolihlahla is ‘troublemaker.'”
She explained that while ‘Rolihlahla’ directly meant ‘shake the tree’, the isiXhosa name given to Madiba was ‘troublemaker.’
“Mandela was a troublemaker. The kind of good troublemaker that we need more of in the world today, and the kind that we will continue to need well into the future. The kind of troublemaker that some people did not always love because he pushed for an equality that we should all enjoy and for the overcoming of a system of oppression which was called convenient and profitable to some,” said Pandor.
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Justice
Pandor said Mandela was a fierce advocate of justice.
“He pushed for a kind of equality and the overcoming of a system of oppression that was convenient and profitable to some, a system that was defeated in South Africa, but which has yet to be eradicated globally.”
‘US no longer leading democracy’
In September, delivering an annual lecture at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection at the University of Johannesburg, Pandor said the US was no longer a leading democracy and had become not only an irritation to its own citizens but also a threat to the rest of the world.
Pandor said the “tectonic shift in the US was part of a world which is shifting under our feet”.
She was more diplomatic than former South African ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool, in not directly naming US President Donald Trump.
Pandor said that, despite all the faults ascribed to Trump, he has a clear purpose and vision: to make America great again by punishing other states, using military and economic might, and somehow convincing the working-class majority that every reversal is temporary, in their interests, and will eventually guarantee greatness.
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