Thousands of South Africans marched Saturday to demand respect for their nation's sovereignty after months of pressure from US President Donald Trump on issues from trade to race relations.
Trump has clashed repeatedly with South Africa's government, hitting the country with high tariffs, berating President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over discredited claims of a "white genocide", and boycotting a G20 summit in Johannesburg last year.
Marking Human Rights Day in South Africa - the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, when apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters - Ramaphosa's party called for marches "in defence of our sovereignty and democratic gains".
"The principle of national sovereignty is under attack from foreign and domestic forces," the party, the African National Congress (ANC), said in the manifesto convening the rallies.
Sea of marchers
A sea of marchers in the green and yellow of the ANC took to the streets in Johannesburg, the economic capital, some in T-shirts with messages such as "We will not be bullied".
Another march was planned in second city Cape Town later in the day.
The rallies come after South Africa summoned US Ambassador Brent Bozell just a month after his arrival in the country for "undiplomatic remarks".
The ambassador said it was hate speech for black South Africans to use a controversial apartheid-era chant, "Kill the Boer" - a word for the country's white Afrikaner population.
"I don't care what your courts say, it's hate speech," Bozell had said in some of his first public remarks in South Africa.
Gaza genocide case
The Trump administration has also clashed with Ramaphosa's government over South Africa taking US ally Israel to the International Court of Justice for allegedly committing genocide in its war in Gaza.
Last year, Trump slapped 30-percent tariffs on most South African exports -- the highest for sub-Saharan Africa. The US Supreme Court recently overruled Trump's tariffs policy.
The call to march also condemned a "severe attack" on South Africa's racial justice policies, without naming the United States.
"Lies are being told about countries in order to justify punitive economic measures and direct foreign interference in domestic politics," it said.
