President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to cut financial assistance to South Africa, accusing its government of “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners and offering them asylum in the US.
The order criticizes a law signed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month that allows for land expropriation with “nil compensation” in limited circumstances. Trump’s directive claims that South Africa has “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.”
South Africa, which was ruled by white Afrikaner leaders during apartheid, remains deeply unequal more than three decades after the end of white minority rule. Land and wealth are still largely concentrated among white South Africans, who make up just 7% of the population, about half of whom are native Afrikaans speakers. However, some white South Africans claim they are now facing discrimination, often citing the country’s affirmative action laws.
Trump’s executive order also cited South Africa’s foreign policy, stating, “In addition, South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”
The White House announced plans to resettle white South African farmers as refugees, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Pretoria. South Africa’s foreign ministry dismissed the order, stating: “It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship. We reiterate that South Africa remains committed to finding diplomatic solutions to any misunderstandings or disputes.”
Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire leading Trump’s efforts to slash the size of the US government, including foreign aid spending, has used his social media platform, X, to criticize South Africa for what he called “openly racist policies.”
Conservative Afrikaner pressure groups expressed concern over the US aid cut and the potential exclusion of South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows South African exporters, including farmers, to sell thousands of products to the US tariff-free.
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“This is indeed a crisis,” said Kallie Kriel, the CEO of Afriforum, a group that describes itself as a civil rights organization for Afrikaners but has been accused of racism. “If somebody is to blame, it is the president and senior ANC [African National Congress] leaders.”
Kriel also praised Trump’s move, stating: “We want to also show appreciation to President Trump … for recognizing and identifying the discrimination that Afrikaners are experiencing through racial legislation … through threats to property rights.” He added, “We became a people here, we are Indigenous people in this country and we are going nowhere.”
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