US President Donald Trump has said he will cut all funding to South Africa and has launched an investigation into the country’s polices, claiming a “massive” human rights violation is happening over a new land expropriation law.
Mr Trump made the pledge 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, Mr Trump wrote, a “massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see. The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
The South African government said 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”.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is one of Mr Trump’s close allies, was born and raised in South Africa and has also targeted Mr Ramaphosa’s government, accusing it of being anti-white and claiming in 2023 it was allowing a “genocide” against white farmers.
Experts in South Africa say that while there are cases of white farmers being killed, it is rather a reflection of the country’s desperately high levels of violent crime across the board, which are some of the worst in the world.
In comments to reporters, Mr Trump said on Sunday “they’re taking away land, they’re confiscating land and actually they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that”.
Mr Trump did not say exactly which policy he was referring to, or which people were being mistreated. However, his comments appeared to be in reaction to the new land law South Africa passed last month that gives the government scope to acquire land from private parties if it is in the public interest.
The law has been debated and considered for years and has been criticised by some interest groups in South Africa as opening the way to seize land from some of the country’s white minority.
However, the government says people’s rights are still protected and land can only be taken in specific circumstances where it is not being used productively and it’s in the public interest that the land is redistributed.
South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African government has not confiscated any land.
The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal…
— Cyril Ramaphosa ?? (@CyrilRamaphosa) February 3, 2025
The office of Mr Ramaphosa released a statement Monday, saying: “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.
“South Africa, like the United States of America and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners.”
South African foreign minister Ronald Lamola said Mr Trump’s administration should use the investigation it says it is launching “to deepen their understanding of South Africa’s policies as a constitutional democracy. Such insights will ensure a respectful and informed approach to our democratic commitments”.
South Africa is a major beneficiary of US funding under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, or Pepfar, which contributes around $400 million a year to the country’s HIV/Aids programme. That funding was already under threat after Mr Trump’s freeze on foreign aid across the world.
Mr Ramaphosa’s office said there is “no other significant funding that is provided by the United States in South Africa”, although South Africa is America’s largest trading partner in Africa by some way, according to the US International Trade Commission.
Mr Trump has previously been critical of South Africa’s government, writing in a social media post during his first term in 2018 that land was being seized from white farms and there was “large scale killing of farmers”.
The US leader said in the same message – which was roundly criticised in South Africa as making false claims – that he was ordering then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo to investigate.
There are an average of around 70 homicides a day in South Africa, according to official crime statistics, and the vast majority of victims are black.
