United States of America President Donald Trump on Friday issued an executive order stopping financial aid to South Africa over concerns that its recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act) for the government to seize land without compensation will hurt a minority of about 2.7 million white farmers in the African nation with a population of about 60 million persons.
Mr Trump said that his administration would support the relocation and resettlement of “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
The White farmers in South Africa are believed to wield significant economic influence, owning swathes of land that even the Black locals —-after over 30 years of the end of apartheid—- cannot afford.
The majority Blacks in the African country only own a tiny fraction of land in the African nation as opposed to the acres of lands owned by the minority Whites.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in January signed the Expropriation Bill into law to provide government the right to seize lands without compensation under certain conditions where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest.”
The U.S. president further highlighted South Africa’s perceived hostility towards the U.S. and its allies, primarily, Israel, stressing the African nation filed a suit at the International Court of Justice in the Hague alleging genocide against Hamas.
“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,” Mr Trump said in the order.
Mr Trump has continued to sign a flurry of executive orders since he was inaugurated on January 20 which includes cancelling foreign aids, revoking birthright citizenship and Joe Biden’s security clearance.
Some of his executive orders have been challenged in court.
