President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Roelf Meyer, a former chief government negotiator during South Africa’s transition from white minority rule, as the country’s next ambassador to the United States, presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya confirmed Tuesday.
Meyer, 78, will fill a post that has been vacant since March 2025, when South Africa’s last envoy, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after angering the Trump administration. Relations between Pretoria and Washington have deteriorated during President Donald Trump’s second term, with Trump making false claims about the persecution of South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority and creating a refugee program for them — a move Pretoria views as a preferential immigration scheme for whites.
Meyer himself is Afrikaner. His political career began in 1979 as a parliamentarian under P.W. Botha, the hardline face of white rule at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle. He later served as minister of defence and constitutional affairs under President F.W. de Klerk.
He rose to prominence as the National Party’s chief negotiator in 1993 during the talks to end apartheid, a year before South Africa’s first democratic elections. Across the table was Ramaphosa, then chief negotiator for the African National Congress. Both men were credited with breaking deadlocked negotiations that paved the way for the 1994 transition. Meyer went on to serve in Nelson Mandela’s unity government.
Ramaphosa “describes him as a true citizen committed to a non-racial South Africa,” according to a biography on the presidency website.
Meyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The appointment signals Ramaphosa’s bid to reset diplomatic ties with Washington by sending a veteran negotiator with deep credibility across South Africa’s political spectrum and direct experience navigating high-stakes talks with opposing sides.
