U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, the White House said on February 7.
The order cited a law that took effect last year on land expropriation, the country’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel, and its move to reinvigorate relations with Iran.
“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,” Trump's order said.
The order said South Africa’s new law seizes the agricultural property of ethnic minority Afrikaners without compensating them. Afrikaners are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers.
The order also said the United States will promote the “resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
The United States allocated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent U.S. government data shows.
Trump has complained about South Africa's land policy, saying that "South Africa is confiscating land" and "certain classes of people" are being treated "very badly." In addition, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump has named as his "efficiency czar," has accused South Africa of having "openly racist ownership laws" and suggested white people were the victims.
The question of land ownership is politically charged in South Africa due to the dispossession of land from blacks during colonialism and apartheid. White landowners still own three-quarters of South Africa's freehold farmland. This contrasts with 4 percent owned by black people, who make up 80 percent of the population, according to the 2017 land audit.
President Cyril Ramaphosa defended South Africa's land policy last week, saying the government had not confiscated any land and the policy was aimed at ensuring equitable public access to land.
"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 on X.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on February 5 cited the land policy in announcing that he will not attend a Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers meeting later this month in South Africa.
The absence of the United States at the G20 will be a blow to the meeting. Rubio also will miss an opportunity to meet his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as Trump pushes for diplomacy on the Ukraine war.
Washington has also complained about the case brought by South Africa at the ICJ against Israel, accusing the close U.S. ally of genocide over its military assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Israel says it has acted in self-defense following a deadly October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
The order didn't elaborate on South Africa's ties to Iran except to say that they were reinvigorated to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.
