The European Union (EU) and South Africa are forging closer ties after previous disagreements led to a frosty relationship, the bloc’s top diplomat said.

The rapprochement comes as US President Donald Trump upends relations with allies through a range of actions including tariff threats and aid suspensions. South Africa has in the past antagonised the EU with its non-aligned stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and by hosting Russian and Chinese war ships for military exercises.

“It is a time of building partnerships and strengthening the partnerships we have. Finding old friends and making new friends,” European Commission VP Kaja Kallas told reporters on Thursday in Johannesburg, where she is attending a Group of 20 foreign ministers summit. “Whatever differences there were, I feel that they are in the past and we can settle them.”

The reconciliation is good news for South Africa, which is being punished by Trump after the American leader falsely accused the nation of seizing private land. While China and the US are South Africa’s largest trading partners, the EU collectively competes with the Asian nation for the top spot, and is the largest foreign investor in Africa’s biggest economy.

More than 1 000 European companies operate in the country, directly employing more than 350 000 people, according to the European Union Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Africa. The EU and South Africa will next month hold a long-delayed joint summit.

Kallas earlier this week expressed support for South Africa’s aims on climate and equality issues as this year’s G20 president.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio snubbed the gathering citing issues including land and equality policies among his reasons for not going. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will also not attend the finance chiefs meeting next week.

Given the erratic nature of Trump’s pronouncements, which have ranged from demanding Denmark sell Greenland to the US to offering South Africa’s White Afrikaans minority refugee status in the US, countries are seeking closer relationships with the EU, Kallas said.

“A lot of partners are turning to us because we are the reliable, the predictable partner,” she said. “So that has value in these current turbulent times.”

Still, given the EU’s own pressing demands, the bloc won’t be able to step in to fill the gap left by the US cutting back on aid globally, she said. In South Africa alone, the US contributes more than $400-million a year to the fight against HIV. And Trump has vowed to end that support.

“Considering the steps that America has taken, then all the countries in the world who are in need and also organisations, multilateral organizations are at our door,” she said. “We can’t fill that void that the US is leaving because we don’t have those funds.”

The EU, given Trump’s threats to withdraw military support at a time when Russia has caused the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, needs to focus on defence spending because it faces an “existential threat,” she said.