(3 Minutes Read)
Trump pledged to stop all future funding on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, writing: “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will cut all funding to South Africa and has launched an investigation into the country’s policies, claiming that a massive” human rights violation” against white people is happening over a new land expropriation law.
Trump pledged to stop all future funding on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, writing: “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly.
In South Africa, Trump wrote that a massive Human Rights violation is happening for all to see. However, he did not give details or provide evidence of such violations. The United States, he said, would not stand for it, and threatened to act against it. Also, he reported to have said he would be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.
The South African government said that the Trump administration needed to have a better understanding of the new law, which is meant to help redress the impact of decades of white minority rule in South Africa under the apartheid regime, which ended in 1994. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement that the South African government has not confiscated any land. No significant action has been taken since the bill was signed into law, Ramaphosa added.
Elon Musk, who is one of Trump’s close allies, was born and raised in South Africa and has also targeted Ramaphosa’s government, previously accusing it of being anti-white and claiming in 2023 that it was allowing a “genocide” against white farmers.
Trump didn’t say exactly which policy he was referring to, or which people were being mistreated. But his comments appeared to be in reaction to the new land law that South Africa passed last month that gives the government scope to acquire land from private parties if it’s in the public interest.
Ramaphosa’s office released a statement Monday, saying that 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.
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South Africa is a major beneficiary of U.S. funding under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which contributes around US$400 million a year to the country’s HIV/AIDS program. That funding was already under threat after Trump’s freeze on foreign aid across the world.
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