Lamola Said American Help Was Welcome. America Offered It. It Was Ignored.
International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola spent the week of 17 to 23 September 2026 in Washington and New York saying South Africa wants a better relationship with the United States. In that same week he told SABC that American help against crime was welcome, while the US ambassador said an American offer to help pay for rural safety had been ignored. Lamola also called the central American concern fake news, told an American audience that US companies never complained about BEE, and shared a stage with Senator Bernie Sanders weeks before America’s midterm elections. My view is simple: this trip made the relationship worse.
Help Is Welcome
On 20 September 2026, Lamola sat down with SABC’s Sherwin Bryce-Pease in New York. My previous article and video dealt with his sovereignty and apartheid claims from that interview. This one is about a single answer he gave on crime.
After saying crime affects everyone in South Africa, Lamola said: “We can also have international partners like the US or any other country to support the efforts to fight crime and so forth but it will not be imposed. It should be something that is mutually agreed upon which South African government is willing to engage on.”
American help is welcome, as long as it is agreed. Hold onto that line.
The Offer
The next day, 21 September, US ambassador Brent Bozell sat down with SABC’s Sophie Mokoena. He said one of America’s 5 asks was that rural crime be made a priority crime and backed with real resources. He said he had put 3 plans in front of President Cyril Ramaphosa, one of them drawn up by the government itself, and that America was prepared to help pay for it.
Bozell said: “I would say that crime in South Africa is horrific. No one’s going to disagree with me on that.”
On 23 September, Bozell visited AfriForum’s headquarters in Centurion and posted about the visit on X. He set out America’s ask on rural safety and ended with 4 words: “This was ignored.”
2 statements, 3 days apart. The minister says help is welcome. The ambassador says help was offered and ignored. Both cannot describe a government that is serious about fixing the relationship.
Why The Offer Mattered
Prof Christiaan Bezuidenhout, a criminologist at the University of Pretoria, did the sums on the SAPS in a Maroela Media report on 22 September 2026.
The SAPS reports 187 681 employees. Take out the 32 413 civilian staff, the officers in offices, and those who are sick, suspended or under investigation, and Bezuidenhout puts the officers available for visible policing at 100 000 at most. Those officers work 12 hour shifts, 4 days on and 4 days off, so only a quarter are on duty at any moment. That leaves about 25 000 officers on shift for 1 165 police stations and 63.52 million people.
That works out to about 39 officers on duty per 100 000 people, or 1 officer for every 2 564 people. The United Nations median is about 300 per 100 000, or 1 for every 333.
Bezuidenhout said the SAPS reservist system, the volunteers who once filled gaps like this, has decayed to the point where it barely exists. The Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority counts more than 600 000 active private security officers. He said that means South Africans pay for their safety twice, once in tax and again every month to a security company.
Lamola told SABC that crime affects everyone. He is right, and that is the problem. The shortfall affects everyone too, and an American offer to help pay for rural policing was an offer to help everyone living outside the cities.
Who Filled The Gap
The AfriForum centre Bozell toured runs 178 neighbourhood and farm watches across the country, with response teams, a trauma unit, drones, camera networks and software that tracks crime patterns. AfriForum has also put a proposal to government for a standing committee between itself and the police.
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said that if the government responds positively to that proposal for a partnership between the public and the community, it would strengthen the fight against crime in everyone’s interest.
The SAPS recorded 1 farm murder between April and June 2026, down from 6 in the same months of 2025. Dr Dirk Hermann, CEO of Solidarity, wrote that the downward trend of recent years is thanks to the community, not the authorities.
So an organisation is doing the state’s job and offering to do it alongside the state. America offered money for the same job. And the minister whose job is to build that relationship spent his week in America telling his hosts there was nothing to worry about.
Fake News
On 23 September, Lamola appeared at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York with Jendayi Frazer, a former US assistant secretary of state for Africa. Asked what he would say to Americans who had only heard their government’s side, he dismissed the claim at the centre of Washington’s concern in 3 words: “It’s fake news.”
He then turned to the American ambassador. Lamola said Bozell can no longer say with certainty what he said before he arrived in South Africa, and added: “But the reality is that he knows now deep in his heart that it doesn’t exist.”
That is false. Lamola cannot know what is in another man’s heart, and Bozell’s own words that same week say something else. Bozell called crime horrific, and he said some rural areas have so little police activity that private organisations and individuals have taken over protecting people. He is the man who offered money to fix it.
America’s asks cover the “Kill the Boer” chant, farm safety, expropriation without compensation, BEE rules for American companies and the refugee programme. By knocking down a claim, Lamola walked past the ask that was actually on the table.
Never Complained
In the same session, Lamola told the room: “They have never complained about BEE. In fact, we have got what is called BEE equivalent.” That BEE equivalent option lets large international companies pay into development programmes instead of handing over shares.
Moments later, he said: “The sticking point is on mining,” explaining that the US administration wants American companies exempted from the BEE rules in that sector.
That is false again. A sticking point is a complaint. Mining and telecoms do not get the equivalent option, and Bozell told Business Day it is “an outrageous situation” given how many American investors want to put money into mining. Lamola told an American audience there was no complaint, and then described the complaint.
Riverside Church
On 21 September, Lamola spoke at Riverside Church in New York. The speaker before him was Senator Bernie Sanders, and Lamola opened with: “Thank you very much, Senator Bernie Sanders, for such a flowering speech,” adding that Sanders had “given the relay to me to take the struggle forward.”
He went on to thank the Hague Group, the group of countries South Africa helped start against Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and the Progressive International, a left-wing movement that Sanders’s own institute helped launch.
Sanders is one of the loudest critics of the administration Lamola says he wants to work with, and America votes in its midterm elections in November. A foreign minister who wants the White House to listen does not share a stage with its opponents weeks before a vote.
Lamola then asked himself the question his critics ask: “Should you not reserve this energy for addressing the social and economic problems in your country?” His answer was that silence is complicity. I would answer it differently. The problem in his country was on the table, with American money attached, and it was ignored.
The Damage
Defending his government’s laws is part of a foreign minister’s job. The damage lies in what Lamola did beyond that.
He told SABC that American help against crime was welcome, while an American offer to help pay for rural policing went unanswered. He called the central American concern fake news instead of answering the asks attached to it. He told a room in New York what the American ambassador privately believes. He said American companies never complained about BEE, then described their complaint. He shared a stage with the sitting president’s loudest critic weeks before an American election.
And DIRCO’s own account of the Washington leg lists meetings with members of Congress, business groups and think tanks. It lists no meeting at the State Department, the White House or the trade office that decides on AGOA.
Bozell said President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told him they have run out of patience. On 26 September, Lex Libertas will place 3 000 white crosses on the National Mall in Washington to remember victims of farm murders, in the city Lamola has just left.
The Bottom Line
On 21 September, Ramaphosa said South Africa will talk to America without bowing its head. Nobody asked it to bow. America asked it to answer. The minister sent to carry that answer spent his week talking past the question, and the relationship is worse for it.
Watch the full video, “Did Lamola’s US Trip Make It Worse?”, on The Riaan Roux Show on YouTube.
Sources
SABC News, Sherwin Bryce-Pease interview with Ronald Lamola, 20 September 2026. SABC News, Sophie Mokoena interview with Brent Bozell, 21 September 2026. Brent Bozell, post on X, 23 September 2026. SABC News broadcast of Ronald Lamola at the Council on Foreign Relations with Jendayi Frazer, 23 September 2026. DIRCO video of Ronald Lamola at Riverside Church, 21 September 2026. Business Day, Brent Bozell on BEE in mining. Maroela Media, Tania Heyns, “Hoeveel polisiebeamptes hou ons veilig? Kenner doen die som”, 22 September 2026. Maroela Media reporting on Bozell’s AfriForum visit. Dirk Hermann, Solidarity, on farm murder statistics. News24, Emsie Ferreira, on Lamola in Washington and the Lex Libertas crosses, September 2026.
