President Donald Trump signed an executive order sanctioning South Africa over its treatment of the white Afrikaner minority while directing the State Department to clear the way for refugees to settle in the United States.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa assented on Jan. 23 to the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, which allows the expropriation of land without compensation in some cases. Many, including the U.S. government, interpreted it as a move against the white minority, which controls most farmland in the country.
The executive order, titled, “Addressing the egregious actions of the Republic of South Africa,” said the new law enables “the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation. This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
In retaliation, the order holds that the U.S. will withhold all aid and support from South Africa until its policies are changed, and “the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
The executive order also condemns South Africa’s “aggressive positions” toward the U.S. and Israel.
“South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements,” it read.
Attacks against white Afrikaner farmers are a highly controversial issue, with different organizations giving contradictory information. The government doesn’t keep statistics regarding the number of white farmers killed, but news of particularly brutal attacks has enraged many Afrikaners. Attacks on farms are often accompanied by extensive torture, rape, and mutilation.
The South African government has emphatically denied any bias against Afrikaners and holds that white farmers are only victims of a larger crime wave.
Trump and Ramaphosa have already clashed in the opening weeks of Trump’s second administration, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing a boycott over the upcoming G20 summit in Johannesburg.
“I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism,” Rubio said in a post on X.
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Ramaphosa implied that Trump was a bully in his State of the Nation address, vowing that the country would remain resilient.
“We are witnessing the rise of nationalism, protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause,” Ramaphosa said. “But we are not daunted to navigate our path through this world that constantly changes. We will not be deterred. We are, as South Africans, a resilient people.”
