119-hr2633

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2633 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

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119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 2633

 To require a full review of the bilateral relationship between the 
 United States and South Africa and identify South African government 
officials and ANC leaders eligible for the imposition of sanctions, and 
 for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 April 3, 2025

 Mr. Jackson of Texas (for himself and Mr. James) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
 and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
 of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
 concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

 To require a full review of the bilateral relationship between the 
 United States and South Africa and identify South African government 
officials and ANC leaders eligible for the imposition of sanctions, and 
 for other purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 This Act may be cited as the ``U.S.-South Africa Bilateral 
Relations Review Act of 2025''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 Congress finds the following:

    (1) The actions of factions within the African National 
 Congress

    (ANC) , the political party that since 1994 has held a 
 governing majority and controlled South Africa's executive 
 branch, are inconsistent with the South African Government's 
 publicly stated policy of nonalignment in international 
 affairs.

    (2) The South African Government has a history of siding 
 with malign actors, including Hamas, a United States designated 
 Foreign Terrorist Organization and a proxy of the Iranian 
 regime, and continues to pursue closer ties with the People's 
 Republic of China

    (PRC) and the Russian Federation.

    (3) The South African Government's support of Hamas dates 
 back to 1994, when the ANC first came into power, taking a 
 hardline stance of consistently accusing Israel of practicing 
 apartheid.

    (4) Following the unprovoked and unprecedented horrendous 
 attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, where Hamas 
 terrorists killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis, members 
 of the South African Government and leaders of the ANC have 
 delivered a variety of antisemitic and anti-Israel-related 
 statements and actions, including--
        (A) on October 7, 2023, South Africa's Foreign 
 Ministry released a statement expressing concern of 
 ``escalating violence'', urging Israel's restraint in 
 response, and implicitly blaming Israel for provoking 
 the attack through ``continued illegal occupation of 
 Palestine land, continued settlement expansion, 
 desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Christian holy 
 sites, and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian 
 people'';
        (B) on October 8, 2023, the ANC's national 
 spokesperson, Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, said of the 
 devastating Hamas attack, ``the decision by 
 Palestinians to respond to the brutality of the settler 
 Israeli apartheid regime is unsurprising'';
            (C) on October 14, 2023, President Cyril Ramaphosa 
 of South Africa, accused Israel of ``genocide'' in 
 statements during a pro-Palestinian rally;
            (D) on October 17, 2023, South African Foreign 
 Minister Naledi Pandor accepted a call with Hamas 
 leader Ismail Haniyeh;
        (E) on October 22, 2023, South African Foreign 
 Minister Naledi Pandor visited Tehran and met with 
 President Raisi of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which 
 is actively funding Hamas;
        (F) on November 7, 2023, in a parliamentary 
 address, Foreign Minister Pandor called for the 
 International Criminal Court to issue an immediate 
 arrest warrant charging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
 Netanyahu with violations of international criminal 
 law;
        (G) on November 17, 2023, South Africa, along with 
 4 other countries, submitted a joint request to the 
 International Criminal Court for an investigation into 
 alleged war crimes being committed in the Palestinian 
 territories;
        (H) on December 5, 2023, the ANC hosted 3 members 
 of Hamas in Pretoria, including Khaled Qaddoumi, 
 Hamas's representative to Iran, and Bassem Naim, a 
 member of Hamas's political bureau in Gaza;
            (I) on December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a 
 politically motivated suit in the International Court 
 of Justice wrongfully accusing Israel of committing 
 genocide;
        (J) in March 2024, South African Foreign Minister 
 Pandor was quoted saying South Africa will arrest 
 Israeli-South Africans who are fighting in the Israeli 
 Defense Forces upon their return home and could strip 
 them of their South African citizenship. Minister 
 Pandor also implicitly encouraged protests outside of 
 the United States Embassy;
        (K) on October 7, 2024, the ANC commemorated only 
 the Palestinian lives lost to Israel, while accusing 
 Israel of genocide;
            (L) in October 2024, South Africa filed its 
 Memorial to the International Court of Justice, 
 accusing Israel of genocidal actions to depopulate Gaza 
 through mass death and displacement;
            (M) in November 2024, South Africa appointed 
 Ebrahim Rasool as their Ambassador to the United 
 States, who previously hosted senior Hamas officials to 
 South Africa when he was the Premier of the Western 
 Cape and, in 2020, was a speaker at an annual event 
 hosted by the Iranian regime to celebrate Hezbollah's 
 resistance against Israel; and
        (N) the ANC's ongoing attempt to rename the street 
 that the United States Consulate in Johannesburg is 
 located on as ``Leila Khaled Drive'', including a quote 
 from ANC first Deputy Secretary General Nomvula 
 Mokonyane saying ``we want the United States of America 
 embassy to change their letterhead to Number 1 Leila 
 Khaled Drive''.

    (5) The South African Government and the ANC have 
 maintained close relations with the Russian Federation, which 
 has been accused of perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine and 
 indiscriminately undermines human rights. South Africa's robust 
 relationship with Russia spans the military and political 
 space, including--
        (A) allowing a United States-sanctioned Russian 
 cargo ship, the Lady R, to dock and transfer arms at a 
 South African naval base in December 2022;
        (B) hosting offshore naval exercises, entitled 
 ``Operation Mosi II'', carried out jointly with the PRC 
 and Russia, between February 17 and 27, 2023, 
 corresponding with the 1-year anniversary of Russia's 
 unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine;
            (C) authorizing a United States-sanctioned Russian 
 military cargo airplane to land at a South African Air 
 Force Base;
            (D) reneging on its initial call for the Russian 
 Federation to immediately withdraw its forces from 
 Ukraine and actively seeking improved relations with 
 Moscow since February 2022;
        (E) dispatching multiple high-level official 
 delegations to Russia to further political, 
 intelligence, and military cooperation;
        (F) United States sanctioned oligarch Viktor 
 Vekselberg donating $826,000 to the ANC in 2022; and
        (G) the ANC publishing an article in their 
 newspaper, ANC Today, in October 2024 promoting Russian 
 propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

    (6) South African Government interactions with the PRC 
 Government and ANC interactions with the Chinese Communist 
 Party

    (CCP) , who are committing gross violations of human 
 rights in the Xinjiang province and implement economically 
 coercive tactics around the globe, undermine South Africa's 
 democratic constitutional system of governance, as exemplified 
 in--
        (A) ongoing ANC and CCP inter-party cooperation, 
 especially with the fundamental incompatibility between 
 the civil and democratic rights guaranteed in South 
 Africa's Constitution and the CCP's routine suppression 
 of free expression and individual rights;
        (B) allowing the private Test Flying Academy of 
 South Africa, which the Department of Commerce added to 
 the Entity List on June 12, 2023, to recruit former 
 United States and NATO fighter pilots to train Chinese 
 People's Liberation Army pilots;
            (C) South Africa's hosting of 6 PRC Government-
 backed and CCP-linked Confucius Institutes, a type of 
 entity that a CCP official characterized as an 
 ``important part of the CCP's external propaganda 
 structure'', the most of any country in Africa;
            (D) South African Government support for, and ANC 
 participation in, a political training school opened in 
 Tanzania funded by the Chinese Communist Party where it 
 trains political members of the ruling liberation 
 movements in 6 Southern African countries. The school 
 instills CCP ideology into the next-generation of 
 African leaders and attempts to export the CCP's system 
 of party-run authoritarian governance to the African 
 continent;
        (E) cooperation with the PRC under the PRC's global 
 Belt and Road Initiative which, while trade and 
 infrastructure-focused, is designed to expand PRC 
 global economic, political, and security sector-related 
 influence;
        (F) the widespread presence in South Africa's media 
 and technology sectors of PRC state linked firms that 
 the United States has restricted due to threats to 
 national security, including Huawei Technologies, ZTE 
 and Hikvision, which place South African sovereignty at 
 risk and facilitate the CCP's export of its model of 
 digitally aided authoritarian governance underpinned by 
 cyber controls, social monitoring, propaganda, and 
 surveillance; and
        (G) the South African government's clear 
 appeasement to the CCP in demanding that Taiwan 
 relocate its representative office out of Pretoria and 
 downgrade its status to that of a trade office.

    (7) The ANC-led South African Government has a history of 
 substantially mismanaging a range of state resources and has 
 often proven incapable of effectively delivering public 
 services, threatening the South African people and the South 
 African economy, as illustrated by--
        (A) President Cyril Ramaphosa's February 9, 2023, 
 declaration of a national state of disaster over the 
 worsening, multi-year power crisis caused by the ANC's 
 chronic mismanagement of the state-owned power company 
 Eskom, resulting from endemic, high-level corruption;
        (B) the persistence of South African state-owned 
 railway company Transnet's insufficient capacity, which 
 has disrupted rail operations and hindered mining 
 companies' export of iron ore, coal, and other 
 commodities, in part due to malfeasance and corruption 
 by former Transnet officials;
            (C) outbreaks of cholera in 2023 and 2024, the 
 worst in 15 years, which were due in part to the South 
 African Government's disease prevention failures, as 
 President Ramaphosa admitted on June 9, 2023, including 
 a failure to provide clean water to households; and
            (D) rampant state capture, that emerged and grew 
 during the administration of former President Jacob 
 Zuma and has damaged South Africa's international 
 standing and profoundly undermined the rule of law, 
 continues to negatively impact the economic development 
 prospects and living standards of the South African 
 people while deeply damaging public trust in state 
 governance.

    (8) In November 2024, South Africa appointed Ebrahim Rasool 
 as Ambassador to the United States. Rasool had previously made 
 public comments describing President Trump as ``extreme'' and 
 in March 2025, Rasool characterized President Trump as ``a 
 white supremacist''. Secretary of State Marco Rubio 
 subsequently declared Rasool as persona non grata in the United 
 States.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

 It is the sense of Congress that--

    (1) it is in the national security interest of the United 
 States to deter strategic political and security cooperation 
 and information sharing with the PRC and the Russian 
 Federation, particularly any form of cooperation that may aid 
 or abet Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine or its 
 international standing or influence; and

    (2) the South African Government's foreign policy actions 
 have long ceased to reflect its stated stance of nonalignment, 
 and now directly favor the PRC, the Russian Federation, and 
 Hamas, a known proxy of Iran, and thereby undermine United 
 States national security and foreign policy interests.

SEC. 4. PRESIDENTIAL CERTIFICATION OF DETERMINATION WITH RESPECT TO 
 SOUTH AFRICA.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment 
of this Act, the President, in consultation with the Secretary of State 
and the Secretary of Defense, shall certify to the appropriate 
congressional committees and release publicly an unclassified 
determination explicitly stating whether South Africa has engaged in 
activities that undermine United States national security or foreign 
policy interests.

    (b) Accompanying Report.--The certification required by subsection

    (a) shall be accompanied by an unclassified report submitted to the 
appropriate congressional committees, with a classified annex if 
necessary, providing the justification for the determination.

SEC. 5. FULL REVIEW OF THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP.

    (a) Bilateral Relationship Review.--The President, in consultation 
with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the United 
States Trade Representative, and the heads of other Federal departments 
and agencies that play a substantial role in United States relations 
with South Africa, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the 
bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa.

    (b) Report on 

=== Findings ===
-Not later than 120 days after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate 
congressional committees a report that includes the findings of the 
review required by subsection

    (a) .

SEC. 6. REPORT ON SANCTIONABLE PERSONS.

 Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the President, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the 
Secretary of Treasury, shall submit to the appropriate congressional 
committees a classified report that includes--

    (1) a list of senior South African government officials and 
 ANC leaders the President determines have engaged in corruption 
 or human rights abuses that would be sufficient, based on 
 credible evidence, to meet the criteria for the imposition of 
 sanctions pursuant to the authorities provided by the Global 
 Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 10101 et 
 seq.); and

    (2) with respect to each person identified pursuant to 
 paragraph

    (1) --
        (A) a detailed explanation describing the conduct 
 forming the basis of the person's inclusion on the 
 list; and
        (B)
            (i) the expected timeline for sanctions 
 described in paragraph

    (1) to be imposed with respect 
 to such person; or
            (ii) if the President does not intend to 
 impose sanctions with respect to such person, a 
 detailed justification describing the rationale 
 and legal authorities underlying such negative 
 determination.

SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.

    (a) ANC.--The term ``ANC'' means the African National Congress.

    (b) Appropriate Congressional Committees.--The term ``appropriate 
congressional committees'' means--

    (1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of 
 Representatives; and

    (2) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
            (c) CCP.--The term ``CCP'' means the Chinese Communist Party.
            (d) PRC.--The term ``PRC'' means the People's Republic of China.
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