When South Africa’s African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority in elections last year, voters cited a litany of grievances, from widespread poverty to a breakdown in public services. One frequent complaint was that, after 30 years in power, the party had failed to address one of the most glaring vestiges of apartheid — the unequal ownership of land. Seventy-three percent of South Africa’s usable farmland is still owned by the White minority, only 7 percent of the population.
In January, South Africa took a baby step toward addressing this inequity. President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a new land expropriation act that lays out steps for the government to take control of private land. The most controversial provision deals with what’s called “nil compensation,” or when land can be seized without payment — when it has been abandoned or is not being used. In such cases, the government must prove it has a broader public use for the land. The law includes multiple safeguards for landowners, including their right to take the matter to the courts.
The bill is modest in scope — which is why left-leaning politicians attacked it so vociferously. Socialist firebrand Julius Malema disparaged it as “cosmetic.” The national spokesman for the Zulu-centric uMkhonto weSizwe party called it “the same apartheid wine in a different bottle.”
But the “nil compensation” provision caught the attention of President Donald Trump. He might have been listening to the minority White property owners who have been in an uproar over the new law. Or perhaps he was taking advice from his U.S. DOGE Serviceadviser, billionaire Elon Musk, who was born and raised in apartheid South Africa and recently has been clashing with the South African government. Musk’s planned expansion of his Starlink satellite company into the country stalled because he doesn’t want to comply with the Black Economic Empowerment policy — South Africa’s form of affirmative action — which requires Starlink to have at least a 30 percent Black ownership stake. Musk called the rule “openly racist” and has demanded an exemption.
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Trump weighed in with his view that the expropriation law itself amounts to a “shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights,” and responded with an executive order halting all U.S. foreign assistance to South Africa. He said White Afrikaners were “victims of unjust racial discrimination” and ordered the secretaries of state and homeland security to give them priority for refugee resettlement in the United States.
The president also accused South Africa of undermining U.S. foreign policy by building closer ties with Iran and taking Israel to the International Court of Justice for the conduct of its war in Gaza. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he will skip the Group of 20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa this month.
Trump’s rhetoric and actions are shortsighted and probably counterproductive, and they demonstrate little understanding of South Africa’s history of racial injustice.
Since apartheid’s end in 1990, the United States and South Africa have generally had friendly ties. South Africa is America’s largest trading partner on the continent and one of the main beneficiaries of preferential U.S. trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The country is a democratic bulwark on a continent where democracy is scarce.
South Africa’s foreign policy — rooted in its anti-apartheid liberation struggle — has often put it at odds with the United States, however. The country offered minimal, now largely muted, criticism of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. And it was an early member of the BRICS group, along with Brazil, Russia, India and China. Trump has also threatened tariffs against any BRICS countries that try to quit using the U.S. dollar as their preferred currency for trade.
U.S. diplomats are right to question some of South Africa’s foreign policy positions in the appropriate forums. But ostracizing the country is an overreaction. And calling White Afrikaners “racially disfavored” victims, as Trump has done, smacks of insensitivity and shows a limited understanding of history.
South Africa is the first African country to assume the G-20 presidency, and Rubio’s boycott will be seen across the continent as a snub. No doubt China, which has been expanding its trade ties with South Africa, will gladly take advantage of the rift.
While Trump is generally suspending asylum, leaving refugees stranded and stripping Haitians and others living in the United States of their temporary protected status, welcoming White Afrikaners as refugees is cynical to the point of cruelty.
Many crises in Africa demand the U.S. president’s attention — including the war in Sudan, the Rwanda-backed incursion into Eastern Congo and the spread of Islamic insurgencies across the Sahel. Many displaced Africans need foreign assistance. To so prioritize the plight of South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is to undermine all efforts to establish closer, mutually beneficial ties with a friendly African democracy.