The US ambassador to South Africa said South African weapons were loaded onto a Russian vessel when it docked at a Cape Town naval base in December. Pretoria summoned the ambassador amid a diplomatic spat that has put relations between the two friendly nations at their lowest ebb in years. According to SAIIA’s head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Programme, Steven Gruzd, South Africa is jeopardizing its access to the American market through something like the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
