US President Donald Trump has accused South Africa of “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly” as he announced he was cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.
The land issue in South Africa has long been divisive, with efforts to redress the inequality of white-rule drawing criticism from conservatives including Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who was born in South Africa and is a top Trump adviser.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month signed a bill that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer “nil compensation” for property it decides to confiscate in the public interest.
“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, February 2.
“I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” Trump wrote.
Pretoria argues the bill does not allow the government to expropriate property arbitrarily and must first seek to reach an agreement with the owner.
However, some groups fear a situation similar to the Zimbabwe government’s seizure of white-owned commercial farms, often without compensation, after independence in 1980.
Later, in a briefing with journalists, Trump said that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things” without giving examples.
“So that’s under investigation right now. We’ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing — they’re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.”
Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid.
According to the South African government, the 1913 Natives Land Act saw thousands of Black families forcibly removed from their land by the apartheid regime.
The delicate issue has been a particular rallying point for the right, with various conservative figures including Musk and right-wing journalist Katie Hopkins championing the cause of white land-owners.
Musk was born in Pretoria on June 28, 1971, to an engineer father and a Canadian-born model mother, leaving the country in his late teens. The formal policy of apartheid lasted until 1990, and multi-racial elections were held in 1994.
Trump has surrounded himself with powerful Silicon Valley figures who came of age in apartheid southern Africa, like David Sacks, his newly-appointed artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, who co-founded PayPal along with Musk.
Billionaire Peter Thiel — another PayPal cofounder, who introduced Trump to his vice president, J.D. Vance — also lived in southern Africa, including time in Namibia which was then controlled by Pretoria.
