On Friday, President Trump ordered all foreign aid to South Africa to be suspended, and his administration has said that he has “a racially disadvantaged landowner” has been called “Africa” ​​because of what he called the action. He said that “human refugees” will prioritize the United States.
In the order, Trump said “the US will not provide assistance or support to South Africa,” and American officials will be able to support “the Africans of South Africa, who are victims of unfair racism.” He said that he should do something.
Following Trump's criticism on his social media site on Sunday, the South African government was engaged in “at least on a massive scale human rights violation.” He vowed to complete investigation and pledged to cut off assistance.
“South Africa confiscates land and treats a certain class of people very badly,” the president wrote in the post. “It's a bad situation that the radical left media doesn't want to mention.”
The order was surprising to provide official American support for long-standing conspiracy theories about the abuse of white South Africans in the post-apartheid era.
Trump repeatedly made claims without evidence reflecting these conspiracy theories. In 2018, he ordered the Secretary of State to investigate “a massive killing of farmers.” This is an argument challenged by the official figures and the country's largest group of farmers.
Trump's recent comments revolve around a policy signed into law last month by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The law known as the expropriation law repeals laws of the apartheid era, allowing governments to acquire private land in the public interest without paying compensation in certain instances.
The order from Trump came the day after Ramaphosa delivered his national speech, rebelliously, which appears to be a reference to the US president's accusations.
“We can't be bullied,” he said. The South African leader vowed to unite in the face of what he called the “the rise of nationalism and protectionism.”
“We speak in one voice to defend our national interests, sovereignty, constitutional democracy,” he said.
In addition to halting foreign aid, Trump has also ordered officials to provide “humanitarian” assistance to Africans and to allow members of South Africa's white minority to seek refuge in the United States through the American refugee program. I did.
Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the South African government has adopted an ambitious approach to transfer more land ownership to the country's black majority. The new law is sufficient to force many black South Africans to renounce the wealth that arose during apartheid, with exceptions limited to that approach. I came because I insisted that I wasn't doing it.
South Africa's colonial regime was particularly cruel to confiscate and forcibly remove black people from the land. Despite the efforts of the postcolonial government, the results remain clear to this day. White South Africans, who make up 7% of the population, own farmland that covers most of the country's territory.
In a previous executive order, Trump called for a three-month hiatus on the US refugee program, preventing the acceptance of hopeless people fleeing war, economic conflict, natural disasters, or political persecution . Friday's order appeared to make white South Africans an exception to a wider suspension.
It is not clear whether it influenced the president's orders, but billionaire Elon Musk, who became the president's close advisor, is from South Africa. In 2023, Musk released similar far-right conspiracy claims about South Africa on X, the social media platform he owns.
“They are openly pushing towards the white South African genocide,” Musk wrote.
Ramaphosa and Musk spoke on the phone after their social media post. The South African president is trying to clarify what his administration was called “misinformation” by Trump.
In most South Africa, recent Trump attacks have been a rare political one, with leftists, centricists and even far-right activists saying that the US president's land transfer laws are mischaracterized. It urged unity.
His comments amplified long-standing complaints among white South Africans who claim to be discriminated against by the black government after apartheid. But Trump's comments also angered many South Africans who thought the law was a necessary tool to correct historical injustice.
Since 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, the country has enjoyed close ties with the United States. Barack Obama visited there several times during his presidency. This includes when he attended a service ceremony for Mandela, who had been incarcerated for 27 years before becoming president of the country.
But Trump's actions on Friday revealed he didn't see the relationship the same way.
South Africa received over $400 million in aid from the US in 2023, almost all of which went into fundraising efforts to combat HIV and AIDS. The government says US funding accounts for around 17% of the budget for fighting HIV
The far-right white Africans praised Trump's recent attack on the South African government.
Ernst Loetz, executive director of African Foundations, lobbying for international support for African interests, said the government has no land grabbed but can do so. He said he was trying to create.
The expropriation law opens the door to abuse, Loetz said the government can “justify a lot of things under the banner of the public interest.” But even Loetz and his group had not asked Trump to broadly halt assistance to South Africa.
After Trump first commented on the land confiscation, the South African government tried to mediate a conversation between the foreign minister and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to South Africa's US ambassador Ebrahim Lasor. But the Trump administration didn't respond, he said.
