The government and all political parties in South Africa are uniting in opposition to Donald Trump after the American president announced a freeze on aid to the country. He accuses Pretoria of mistreating its white minority following the introduction of a recent law on the expropriation of land. South Africa’s president has condemned the move as ‘propaganda’.
In response to the expropriation reform, financial aid to South Africa was frozen following the signing of an executive order on 7 February. Outlining the reasons for its decision, a statement from the White House explained that it sees the reform as an attack on Afrikaners.
"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," the statement reads.
Trump added that the US would show support to white South Africans who are, he says, "disadvantaged" by this land reform.
The statement adds that the United States will withhold aid and support from South Africa for as long as it engages in what it claims are unjust and immoral actions that negatively impact the US. Additionally, it states that the US will support the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees fleeing government-backed racial discrimination, including the confiscation of property based on race.
Union against Trump in Pretoria
In response to Trump's attack, the South African president is launching a major international campaign to clarify his policy.
"The work that we do and what we stand for does need to be explained, especially to our trading partners," President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
He wants to send delegations to several capitals, including Washington, to set the record straight on the expropriation law.
Ramaphosa said in a national address last week that his country would not be "bullied" by the United States.
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MK takes action
Earlier this week, the party of former president Jacob Zuma, MK, filed a treason complaint against the group AfriForum, a pressure group championing the white Afrikaner minority in South Africa, which raised a complaint saying that they are being persecuted.
The MK party accuses AfriForum of lobbying against the law in US media and political circles, adding the group is spreading misinformation to influence Trump.
Afriforum expressed its "great appreciation" of Trump, while stressing that Africaners' place was in their home country.
Meanwhile, the mostly white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) - coalition partner in Ramaphosa's unity government said this week that it had filed a court challenge to the act, calling it unconstitutional. But the party has since decided to support Ramaphosa's plan to send an envoy to the US, and criticised Trump's remarks.
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Meanwhile, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by Julius Malema, accused Musk of being behind Trump's stance, notably in a post on Musk's social media network, X.
South Africa's foreign ministry said that, "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."
The Expropriation Act
The land act was signed in Pretoria last month by President Ramaphosa to address land inequalities that have persisted for over three decades since the end of white minority rule.
Known as the Expropriation Act, it is designed to enable the state to reclaim land in the public interest, with the agreement of current private landowners, in an effort to rectify longstanding disparities in land ownership.
South Africa’s government is defending the reform as a means to rectify the injustices of the apartheid and colonial times.
Most farmland in South Africa is still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid. White farmers own three quarters of South Africa's privately held land, while white people make up just seven percent of the population of 63 million, according to data from 2022.
Afrikaners make up a small proportion of that group, with no exact data on their number. They are descendants of European colonial settlers who arrived from the 17th century, mostly from Holland and France. Other white people have come to South Africa since and taken more land.
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Pretoria also points out that no expropriations have yet taken place under the law.
"The country and its agricultural sector is doing robustly well in terms of the Expropriation Act," economist Wandile Sihlobo told one of RFI's correspondents in South Africa.
"It does not target particular people or a certain group of individuals. Property rights are still protected. I think President Trump's statements are very divisive and not representative of what's happening in South Africa," the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) added.
(with newswires)
