Trump, South Africa in growing row over hotly contested land law, country’s deals with US foes

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JOHANNESBURG — President Donald Trump’s executive order penalizing South Africa released on Friday has hit a raw nerve in the African nation. The order primarily aimed at land seizures comes as Pretoria has faced ongoing U.S. criticisms that it has operated against U.S. interests, including its support of the Palestinians in the International Criminal Court and its warm relations with China, Russia and Iran.

Friday’s executive order stated in part, “In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

“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 FREEZES AID TO SOUTH AFRICA, PROMOTES RESETTLEMENT OF REFUGEES FACING RACE DISCRIMINATION

President Donald Trump takes part in a signing ceremony in the President’s Room at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. (Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images)

Friday’s executive order pointedly took aim at Pretoria’s foreign policy: “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 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.”

On Saturday the South African government responded, “It is of great concern that the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognize South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid,” Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the country’s International Relations Department, posted on X.

Phiri added that “we are concerned by what seems to be a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation. It is disappointing to observe that such narratives seem to have found favor among decision-makers in the United States of America.”

Farmers inspect show sheep in Philippolis, South Africa, on Nov. 1, 2024. (PAUL BOTES/AFP via Getty Images)

Although it lost its majority in last year’s elections, the African National Congress (ANC) is still the main party in South Africa’s present government of national unity. The party’s secretary general reacted to the offer that White Afrikaners can go become U.S. citizens by posting a photo on X. In it, a black man is standing by an open door and gesturing with both arms outside the door, suggesting Afrikaners should leave.

The government has claimed Whites of all backgrounds, not just Afrikaners, still own approximately 70% of South Africa’s land. The government is on record saying the Expropriation Act will only be used to take land needed for public purposes – such as for a new school – from people of any color when the owner refuses to sell, and even then there would be “fair and equitable compensation.”

Emma Powell, the international relations spokesperson for South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, told Fox News Digital that “for decades, the DA has opposed the ANC’s race-based policies. These policies have benefited the political elite while the vast majority of South Africans continue to languish in poverty.”

SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL LAND SEIZURE BILL, ERODING PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, left, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are shown during the BRICS summit on Oct. 23, 2024. (ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

She continued that the DA “will be pursuing legal action to safeguard property rights. It is now time for the ANC to re-evaluate both their domestic and foreign policy positions, which actively undermine our national interests.”

Powell told Fox News Digital, her party will send “a high-level delegation to Washington D.C. in coming weeks to engage with decision-makers. The DA remains committed to protecting private property rights, fostering economic growth, and strengthening diplomatic ties with the U.S.”

Afrikaners, descendants of predominantly Dutch settlers who landed in Southern Africa in 1652, became the country’s rulers and are widely believed to have developed the apartheid system that separated Whites and Blacks, treating Blacks as second-class citizens.

U.S. and South African flags are shown at Union Buildings in Pretoria. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

In a statement released on Saturday, AfriForum, a civil rights group that largely represents Afrikaners, expressed “great appreciation” for Trump’s action, which it said was “a direct result of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government’s irresponsible actions and policies.”

It continued, “However, the civil rights organization and its sister institutions in the Solidarity Movement remain committed to Afrikaners’ future at the southern tip of Africa and insist that urgent solutions must therefore be found for the injustices committed by the South African government against Afrikaners and other cultural communities in the country.”

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Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema greets supporters in Pretoria, South Africa, on Feb. 2, 2019. (PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the more outspoken and extreme members of the government of national unity, Julius Malema, head of the South African minority party Economic Freedom Fighters, said on X, “In light of the aggression by the USA against South Africa, we must as a nation seriously consider strengthening ties with Russia, China and nations who belong to (the international trade body) BRICS to avoid unnecessary confrontations with maniacs such as Donald Trump.”

Malema has been taken to court on hate crime charges. In one instance, he sang the genocidal anti-apartheid struggle song “Kill the Boer, the farmer,” referring to the White descendants of Dutch settlers or “Boers” in South Africa.

Paul Tilsley is a veteran correspondent who has reported on African affairs for more than three decades from Johannesburg, South Africa. He can be followed on Twitter @paultilsley