US 'now a global threat'

FROM DREAM TO DREAD: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS LOST ITS WAY - PANDOR

- Eric Mthobeli Naki

The US is no longer a leading democracy and has become not only an irritation to its own citizens, but a threat to the rest of the world, according to former minister of international relations and cooperation Naledi Pandor.

She was delivering a lecture at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection at the University of Johannesburg last week.

Pandor, who is the Nelson Mandela Foundation board chair, said the "tectonic shift in the US was part of a world which is shifting under our feet".

She was more diplomatic than former SA ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool in not directly naming US President Donald Trump. She also lashed out at the Joe Biden administration for its disrespect for international law.

Pandor said the current US stance on immigration indicates the American dream was no longer an open invitation and that an open, inclusive electoral democracy embraced for many decades was no longer regarded as legitimate.