Cyril Ramaphosa advised not to react to Donald Trump's 'provocation'

Bongani Bingwa is joined by Dr Terence McNamee, a specialist in development, governance and security issues at the Wilson Centre.

Listen below:

We are a resilient people. We will not be bullied.

Those were the words of President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation address in Cape Town on Thursday.

His comments come after yet another diplomatically charged week.

Days after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding to South Africa, it was announced his Secretary of State Marco Rubio would not attend an upcoming G20 meeting in South Africa.

"I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property," Rubio wrote on X.

The announcement likely means Rubio's boss won't be attending either.

"There's a long time to run until the G20 and everyone needs to just, when it comes to Donald Trump, hang on because it is a rollercoaster."

- Dr Terence McNamee, Wilson Centre

"If you look at Rubio's comments, 'South Africa is doing very bad things', he was clearly aping the language of his president."

- Dr Terence McNamee, Wilson Centre

McNamee says while it appears that, right now, South Africa is in Trump's crosshairs, it won't serve Ramaphosa to be 'too reactive'.

"I'm Canadian, and we are experiencing almost the exact same thing in Canada."

- Dr Terence McNamee, Wilson Centre

McNamee adds that it may benefit South Africa to take a page out of Canada's book.

"Canada is not rising to the provocation, but instead it's really gathering itself and coming up with a coherent response."

- Dr Terence McNamee, Wilson Centre

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