South Africa is once again being judged by the rest of the continent on how it treats foreign nationals within its borders and the verdict so far is not favourable. Since April, anti-migrant mobilisation in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal has produced a wave of consular action unmatched in scale since 2019. Ghana evacuated 300 citizens in May. Mozambique confirmed five nationals killed near Mossel Bay and began repatriating bodies and survivors in early June. Malawi launched its own voluntary return programme days later, while Nigeria registered over a thousand citizens seeking repatriation and flew its first evacuees home by 11 June. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has now expressed “grave alarm.” No formal trade sanctions have followed. But the assumption that diplomatic anger stops at strongly worded statements misreads both the economics and the law.

Start with the economics, because the numbers are unambiguous about where South Africa’s exposure actually lies. This is not primarily a West African story, despite Ghana’s and Nigeria’s diplomatic assertiveness. It is a Southern African one. In 2023, Zimbabwe imported US$3,5 billion in goods from South Africa, Mozambique US$2,34 billion, Zambia US$2,61 billion and Malawi US$489 million. South Africa supplied 38% of Zimbabwe’s imports, 23% of Mozambique’s and 26% of Zambia’s, covering electricity, fresh produce, pharmaceuticals and ICT equipment.

These are not luxury exports that can be quietly absorbed elsewhere; they are inputs into daily life in neighbouring economies. A conservative basket of identified bilateral flows across the most exposed partners totals at least US$14,35 billion. Even a 5% disruption to that basket, driven not by embargo but by consumer backlash, insurance costs, logistics delays and diverted orders, would put roughly US$718 million in annual trade at risk. Justice Minister Mmamaloko Kubayi has already acknowledged that the unrest is damaging South Africa’s image and provoking backlash against South African businesses and artists abroad. That is not speculation; it is the early, visible phase of exactly the trust erosion the trade data warns about.

Now the law, because the legal architecture is in fact particularly clear on what is permitted and what is not. The Constitution is supreme and the Immigration Act of 2002 gives the state and only the state, the authority to regulate the admission, residence and removal of non-citizens. President Ramaphosa has said as much explicitly, insisting that only government may act against illegal migration. That distinction matters because it draws a sharp line between two separate questions that public debate keeps collapsing into one: whether South Africa will tighten migration enforcement and whether private actors may enforce immigration policy through intimidation and violence.

The answer to the first is yes, within law. The answer to the second is no and not as a matter of policy preference but of constitutional obligation. The Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Act of 2023 exists precisely to give effect to South Africa’s obligations on xenophobia and related intolerance. The Refugees Act of 1998 prohibits actions that amount to constructive refoulement of people with pending or recognised protection claims. And Article 12(5) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights prohibits mass expulsion of non-nationals on national or ethnic grounds, a provision the ACHPR’s recent alarm should be read against directly. A state that tolerates de facto nationality-based expulsion through private violence, while declining to call it that, is not meeting these obligations merely by issuing condemnations.

The golden thread running through both the legal record and the trade data is the same: credibility. AfCFTA and SADC trade instruments can lower tariffs and simplify customs, but they cannot manufacture trust where reputational and legal credibility have collapsed. South Africa’s long-term risk is not a bad trade quarter; it is a steady erosion of continental political capital at precisely the moment AfCFTA implementation depends on it.

The response required is therefore dual-track and deliberately narrow rather than diffuse. First, prosecutions must be visible, fast and publicly reported, so that condemnation is matched by consequence rather than rhetoric alone. Second, government should appoint a senior inter-ministerial envoy team to the most exposed states – Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Ghana and Nigeria – with a narrow mandate covering protection, restitution and corridor continuity for trade-critical routes such as Maputo Development Corridor and North-South Corridor. Third, lawful migration enforcement should proceed openly and on the record, precisely so that it cannot be confused with, or used to excuse, vigilantism.

None of this requires choosing between border control and constitutional order. It requires insisting on both, visibly and simultaneously, because Africa is no longer taking South Africa’s assurances on faith.

For more on this topic read: When Anger Finds the Wrong Target… Xenophobic Protests and the 2026 Local Government Elections – https://fwdeklerk.org/when-anger-finds-the-wrong-targetxenophobic-protests-and-the-2026-local-government-elections/