The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has condemned news reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to offer regulatory assurances to Elon Musk's Starlink ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump, and the party has threatened to oppose the Starlink deal in Parliament, in courts, and on the streets.

The EFF said Ramaphosa’s move is unconstitutional, and that it shows that Ramaphosa is willing to compromise the country’s sovereignty to “massage the inflated ego of Musk and Trump”.

Ramaphosa undertook his working visit to the US on Monday, where he is scheduled to meet with Trump, to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of interest.

“The EFF is not surprised, however, as we noted this possibility when he embarked on this ill-advised trip, and we are concerned that this as part of a broader campaign by Ramaphosa to appease the Trump administration and white capital by potentially sacrificing key transformative laws like the National Health Insurance Act, the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, and the Expropriation Act,” the EFF said.

The EFF warned that it would resist any such deal through legal action and mass mobilisation.

It stressed that while it was not opposed to technology or global innovation, it was against “unregulated, foreign-controlled infrastructure” that operated outside South Africa's legislative framework.

The EFF said Starlink represented a threat to the local industry and to national security, as it was owned by someone who the party said had peddled lies about a genocide in the country to leverage preferential and unregulated access to the country’s market.

“One wonders why Elon Musk is so desperate to set up operations in a country involved in a genocide, as any genuine humanitarian would recognise genocide as a disincentive for investment,” the EFF said.

The party said Ramaphosa had no executive authority to unilaterally guarantee access to South Africa's telecommunications sector, let alone bypass necessary black economic empowerment laws.

“…any such commitments fall squarely within the legislative domain of Parliament, not Luthuli House or the President's delegation. These powers are governed by national legislation and independent regulators, not the whims of one man desperate for foreign approval,” the EFF noted.