For most of the cold war, the United States and apartheid South Africa were de facto allies. In 1962, the CIA eventipped off Pretoria to Nelson Mandela’s whereabouts, leading to his arrest. But in the 1980s, as the anti-apartheid movement challenged this cozy arrangement, the American debate over South Africa split along ideological lines. It was Trump’s predecessors in the conservative movement and the Republican Party who insisted most vociferously that America should prefer the apartheid government to its most prominent black foes.





Conservative Republicans often said they opposed apartheid. But, like Trump, they expressed a concern for white interests, and an inclination to see the best in white behavior. In 1981, Ronald Reagan called South Africa “a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.” In 1985, the National Reviewfounder William F. Buckley wrote, “We need to understand that white South Africans see their society as one that would not survive one-man-one-vote.” That same year, Jerry Falwell returned from a trip to South Africa urging Americans to invest in the country and buy its gold coins.



