US President Donald Trump signs an executive order on the US withdrawal from WHO (World Health Organization) in the Oval Office of the WHite House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. Picture: Jim WATSON / POOL / AFP
US President Donald Trump has made good on his promise to cut funding to South Africa over the government’s land expropriation policy and resettle white farmers whose land will allegedly be expropriated.
In a late-night Executive Order on Friday, Trump accused South Africa’s government of “egregious actions” without providing any evidence, saying the recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act) would seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.
Trump said this Act followed “countless government policies” designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against “racially disfavored landowners”.
In addition, he also accused South Africa of having taken aggressive positions towards the US and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide against Palestinians in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.
“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its ‘undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” read the Order.
“It is the policy of the United States that, as long as South Africa continues these unjust and immoral practices that harm our Nation:
(a) the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa; and
(b) the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
Trump said all US executive departments and agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development, shall, to the maximum extent allowed by law, halt foreign aid or assistance delivered or provided to South Africa, and shall promptly exercise all available authorities and discretion to halt such aid or assistance.
Diplomatic and political tension between the US and South Africa escalated last week after Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying South Africa was “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY” and threatened to cut off all future funding to the country until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.
During his first term as US President, Trump in 2018 ordered then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into land seizures from and killings of white farmers in South Africa.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would not attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November, casting doubts whether he would also attend the preparatory meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Johannesburg on 20 and 21 February.
Ronald Lamola, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, has maintained that there was no arbitrary dispossession of land / private property, saying this law was similar to the Eminent domain laws.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also said he was looking forward to engaging with the Trump administration over South Africa’s land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest.
In his State of the Nation Address on Thursday, Ramaphosa maintained that the recently adopted Expropriation Act was not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the Constitution.
“South Africa, like the United States of America and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners,” Ramaphosa said.
“We will not be bullied. We are witnessing the rise of nationalism, protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause. But we are not daunted to navigate our path through this world that constantly changes. We will not be deterred. We are, as South Africans, a resilient people.”
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