ABSTRACT
Vice-President Gore's trip to South Africa in February 1997 concluded on a positive note, with Mbeki and he exchanging warm words and handshakes, US foreign policy makers were relieved. In committing South Africa to a course of economic liberalism, Mandela and Mbeki had provided domestic and regional political forces, already suspicious of the South African leadership's motives, the opportunity to voice criticisms that they were merely 'pushing an American agenda on the continent.' The course to be taken became obvious when Deputy President Mbeki said that in spite of the revised figures in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement. His commitment to the fundamentals of economic liberalism and the parameters of fiscal prudence set out in Growth, Employment, and Redistribution were 'set in stone'. In sum, the Maputo Corridor Project was a concrete expression—literally—of the type of partnership the South African government envisioned between the public and private sectors.
