South Africa

South Africa is Africa's most industrialised economy, a BRICS and G20 member of around 60 million people. Pretoria is the executive capital, Cape Town the legislative seat, and Johannesburg the largest city. Ports at Cape Town, Durban and Richards Bay anchor its place in global shipping, and it is a founding member of the African Union.

Pretoria's silence on the Iran war fits a pattern set since 2024, when South Africa adopted a formal stance of strategic Non-alignment, expressed most clearly through the ICJ genocide case it brought against Israel over Gaza. The Iran calculation cuts in both directions at once: openly criticising Washington would cost Pretoria trade access, while endorsing the strikes would sit awkwardly beside its own Gaza case, and BRICS partners Russia and China have condemned the strikes without South Africa following suit .

South Africa's own harbours are absorbing a side effect of that same war: Cape Town, Durban and Richards Bay have become unplanned bunkering stops for tankers detouring around the Hormuz and Red Sea conflict zones, a traffic increase that lifts harbour revenue while adding wear to infrastructure and spill risk along the ecologically fragile Cape coastline.