United States President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order freezing aid to South Africa, citing a recent land expropriation law passed by the country that the American leader and his allies claim discriminates against white farmers.
But the aid block is only the culmination of a series of pressure points between the US and South Africa that were building up even during the administration of former President Joe Biden, and have now exploded under Trump.
We track the slide in bilateral ties between the two nations and explore what each of them risks losing if relations spiral further.
On February 2, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, saying “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.
“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” he wrote. “Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of the situation has been completed!”
The executive order that Trump subsequently signed on February 7 claimed that the expropriation law, passed in December, 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,” the order said.
The following day, he doubled down on those comments while addressing reporters. “Terrible things are happening in South Africa,” he said, referring to the land law.
In the executive order, the US also offered to resettle Afrikaaner South Africans, a suggestion that has been rejected by Afrikaaner groups, including those that have lobbied the US and Trump specifically against the South African government.
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