United States President Donald Trump has frozen aid to South Africa in an escalation of a rift between his administration and Pretoria over a controversial land expropriation law aimed at tackling inequality stemming from apartheid.
In an executive order signed on Friday, Trump said the law showed a “shocking disregard” for citizens’ rights and would allow the government to seize land from ethnic minority Afrikaners without compensation.
The passage of the Expropriation Act, signed last month by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, followed “countless” policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity, as well as “hateful rhetoric” and government actions that have driven violence against “racially disfavored” landowners, Trump said in his order.
South Africa has also taken “aggressive positions” towards the US and its allies, including accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and boosting relations with Iran, Trump said in the order.
“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” the US president said in the order.
Trump’s order also said his administration would promote the resettlement of Afrikaners “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.
Trump and Ramaphosa have been engaged in an escalating war of words over the law since Sunday, when the US president accused his counterpart’s administration of “confiscating land” and mistreating “certain classes of people”.
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