President Trump ordered Friday to stop external aid in South Africa and said his administration would prioritize White resettlement, “afrikaner refugees” in the United States because of what is called the actions of the country’s government that “racist” .
In turn, Mr Trump said that “the United States will not provide help or help in South Africa” ​​and that US officials have to do everything possible to help “afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination “.
He follows Mr Trump’s accusation on the social media site on Sunday that the South African government was involved in a “mass violation of human rights, at least”. He was sworn in complete research and promised to interrupt the aid.
“South Africa has been confiscated and faces very much in human categories,” the president writes in the post. “It’s a bad situation that the radical left means do not want to report.”
The mandate was stunning in providing official American support to long -term conspiracy theories about the mistreatment of white South Africans in the post -apartheid era.
Mr Trump has repeatedly made claims without evidence that he reflects these conspiracy theories. In 2018, he ordered the minister’s minister to examine the “great murder of farmers” – a claim being challenged by official figures and the country’s largest group of farmers.
Mr Trump’s recent comments referred to a policy signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa last month.
The law, known as an expropriation law, abolishes an apartheid law and allows the government in some cases to acquire private territories in the public interest without paying compensation-which can only be done after a justification process subject to judicial review.
Mr Trump’s order came one day after Mr Ramaphosa handed his situation to the nation with a disobedience that appeared to be a reference to the accusations of the US president.
“We will not intimidate,” he said. The leader of South Africa pledged to stand united in front of what he called “the rise of nationalism and protectionism”.
“We will talk in a voice about the defense of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy,” he said.
In addition to Halt in foreign aid, Mr Trump ordered officials to provide “humanitarian” help to Afrikaners and allow South African white minority members to seek refuge in the United States through the US Refugee Program.
Since the transition to the Republic in 1994, the South African government has adopted an approach that intends to try to try to transfer the ownership of more lands to the black majority of the country. The new law, with limited exceptions from this approach, came, as many Black South Africans argued that Nelson Mandela and other leaders did not do enough to force the white minority to abandon the wealth that had gathered during the apartheid.
The colonial regimes of South Africa were particularly brutal in the launch of the black peoples of their land and their removal. Despite the efforts of the post -war governments, the result remains clear to date: White South Africans, who make up 7 % of the population, their own agricultural land covering the majority of the country’s territory.
In a previous executive mandate, Mr Trump had called for a three -month cessation of the United States Refugee Program, preventing the acceptance of desperate people who were leaving war, economic conflicts, natural disasters or political persecutions. Friday’s mandate seemed to make the white South Africans an exception from the wider attitude.
Although it is not clear whether he had an influence on the president’s order, Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become a close adviser to the president, is from South Africa. In 2023, Mr Musk published similar conspiracy far -rights for South Africa in X, his social media platform.
“They openly push for genocide of white people in South Africa,” Mr Musk wrote.
Mr Ramaphosa and Mr Musk spoke by phone following this social media post, with the president of South Africa trying to clarify what his administration has called “misinformation” traded by Mr Trump.
In much of South Africa, Mr Trump’s attacks in recent days have inspired a rare part of political unity, with left, centralized and even some far -right activists who say that the characterization of the US president of the land law was wrong.
His comments have reinforced a long complaint between some white South Africans who claim to have been distinguished by the government led by Black after Apartheid. But Mr Trump’s comments also angered many South Africans, who saw the law as an indispensable means of restoring historical injustice.
Since 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, the country has enjoyed a close relationship with the United States. Barack Obama visited there several times during his presidency, including when he attended the memorial service for Mr Mandela, who had been imprisoned for 27 years before becoming president of the country.
But Mr Trump’s actions on Friday made it clear that he did not see the relationship in the same way.
South Africa received more than $ 400 million in help from the United States in 2023, almost all of which went into funding efforts to fight HIV and AIDS. The government said US funding is about 17 % of its budget for HIV battle
The far -right white Afrikaners applauded Mr Trump’s attacks on South African government in recent days.
Ernst Roets, executive director of the Afrikaner Foundation, which deals with international support for the interests of Afrikaners, said that while the government did not understand the land, he was trying to create a legal and political context to be able to do so.
The expropriation law opens the door for abuse, Mr Roets said because the government “can justify many things in the context of the public interest”. But even Mr Roets and his team had not invited Mr Trump to widely reduce the aid in South Africa, rather than seeking targeted actions against government leaders.
After Mr Trump commented for the first time the confiscation of the land, the South African government attempted to cross a debate between Foreign Minister and Marco Rubio, the Foreign Minister, according to Ebrahim Rasool, South African Ambassador to the United States. . But Trump’s administration didn’t answer, he said.
