Reagan Vetoes Apartheid Sanctions, Congress Overrides in Historic Rebuke

President Reagan vetoes the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, calling economic sanctions against South Africa’s white minority regime “economic warfare” and claiming they would hurt the impoverished Black majority. Reagan’s veto represents the culmination of his administration’s “constructive engagement” policy, which for six years had opposed meaningful pressure on the apartheid regime.

The constructive engagement approach, based on quiet dialogue with white minority leaders through private inducements rather than public pressure or sanctions, drew fierce criticism from anti-apartheid activists. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, visiting the U.S. in 1984, declared that “constructive engagement is an abomination, an unmitigated disaster… Apartheid is as evil, as immoral, as un-Christian, in my view, as Nazism. And in my view, the Reagan administration’s support and collaboration with it is equally immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian.”

In a stunning rebuke to Reagan, Congress overrides the veto for the first time in his presidency. On September 29, the House of Representatives votes 313-83 for the override. On October 2, 1986, the Senate votes 78-21 to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act into law over Reagan’s objections, imposing sanctions including bans on new investment, imports of South African agricultural products, and exports of crude oil to South Africa.

Reagan’s staunch defense of the apartheid regime and opposition to sanctions places him on the wrong side of history in one of the defining human rights struggles of the late 20th century. The congressional override demonstrates bipartisan recognition that moral principles must sometimes override Cold War geopolitical calculations.