1986 - U.S. passes Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act

During the 1980s, the conservative administrations of both Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States faced increasingly insistent pressures for sanctions against South Africa. A high-level Commonwealth mission went to South Africa in 1986 in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the government to suspend its military actions in the townships, release political prisoners, and stop destabilizing neighbouring countries. Later that year, American public resentment of South Africa’s racial policies was so strong the U.S. Congress passed—over a presidential veto—the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. It banned new investments and loans, ended direct air flights, and prohibited the import of many commodities. Other governments took similar actions.