Donald Trump has claimed South Africa is “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly”, announcing he is cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.
The US president’s intervention into one of South Africa’s most divisive issues was rebutted by the country’s government and criticised by groups across its political spectrum.
Land ownership in South Africa remains highly unequal, a legacy of white minority rule that governments have struggled to address since the first multi-racial elections in 1994.
Efforts to redress this inequality have drawn criticism from conservatives globally, including the South African-born billionaire and close Trump ally Elon Musk, who on Monday posted “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?” on his social media platform X, in response to the defence of the country’s policy by South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Musk, who is heading Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, has said he is working to shut down the foreign aid agency USAid. At the weekend, the Trump administration removed two security officials from USAid who had tried to stop representatives from his department of government efficiency from gaining access to the building.
Ramaphosa signed a bill last month allowing the South African government to offer “nil compensation” in certain circumstances for land it expropriates in the public interest. This includes if the land is abandoned or held purely for speculation, if offering no compensation is “just and equitable”.
“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday. “I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
In response, Ramaphosa said its law was not exceptional and that the only US aid South Africa received was 17% of its HIV/Aids programme.
“The recently adopted Expropriation Act is 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,” Ramaphosa said in a post on X. “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.”
The US federal government can take over private property if “just compensation” is offered.
Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party has previously argued that the bill, which was passed by the previous ANC-led parliament, is not arbitrary as the government must first seek agreement with the owner.
However, some groups have warned it could lead to a situation like the Zimbabwe government’s seizure of white-owned commercial farms, often without compensation, after independence in 1980.
The issue has divided South Africa’s coalition government, with the white-led, pro-business Democratic Alliance launching a formal dispute over it. The Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom party has raised concerns that it could undermine the Zulu monarchy’s extensive land ownership.
Later, in a media briefing, Trump said, without providing examples, that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things”.
“So that’s under investigation right now. We’ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing – they’re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that,” he said.
South Africa’s foreign ministry said in a statement: “We trust President Trump’s advisers will make use of the investigative period to attain a thorough understanding of South Africa’s policies within the framework of a constitutional democracy.”
Thousands of Black families were forcibly removed from their land by the apartheid regime under the 1913 Natives Land Act. Since the end of apartheid, courts have ruled on a handful of lengthy land disputes, returning land to previously displaced owners.
The government has also bought and redistributed 7.8m hectares (19m acres) of farmland, with its target to redistribute 30% of white farms moved repeatedly from 1998 until 2030.
Black farmers have bought another 1.8m hectares of land, according to the Stellenbosch University economists Johann Kirsten and Wandile Sihlobo. However, 78% of private farms remain white-owned, while many Black farmers have struggled amid a lack of financial and technical support.
The right has used murders of white South African farmers as a rallying point, including the British rightwing journalist Katie Hopkins and Musk, who was born in Pretoria in 1971 but left the country in his late teens.
Trump has surrounded himself with powerful Silicon Valley figures who came of age in apartheid southern Africa, including David Sacks, his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency tsar, who co-founded PayPal with Musk.
The billionaire Peter Thiel – another PayPal cofounder, who introduced Trump to his vice-president, JD Vance – also lived in southern Africa, including in Namibia which was then ruled by South Africa. He has previously been accused of supporting apartheid, something a spokesperson denied on his behalf.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report.
