Why is Trump punishing South Africa and who are the Afrikaners he wants to give refugee status to?

People place white crosses representing farmers killed in the country at a ceremony at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, South Africa, Oct. 30, 2017. (AP Photo, File)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to punish South Africa by signing an executive order Friday stopping all aid to the country over what he called a human rights violation against a white minority group.

The Trump administration says a land expropriation law South Africa recently passed was “blatantly” discriminatory against its white Afrikaners, who are descendants of Dutch and other European colonials. The Trump administration said the South African government was allowing violent attacks against Afrikaner farming communities.

It also accused South Africa of supporting “bad actors” in the world, including the militant Palestinian group Hamas, Russia and Iran.

Land distribution in South Africa has been a complicated and highly emotive issue with racial connotations for more than 30 years since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.

It was thrust into the global spotlight after Trump and his South African-born adviser Elon Musk criticized the South African government’s policies as anti-white, sometimes with false statements.

What is the law Trump is referring to?

The new Expropriation Act gives the South African government scope to expropriate land from private parties, but only if it’s in the public interest and under certain conditions. Trump referred to it last Sunday when he first announced his intention to stop funding to South Africa.

He said South Africa’s government was doing “terrible things” and claimed land was being confiscated from “certain classes.” That’s not true, and even groups in South Africa who are challenging the law say no land has been confiscated. The South African government says private property rights are protected and Trump’s description of the law includes misinformation and “distortions.”

However, the law has prompted concern in South Africa, especially from groups representing parts of the white minority, who say it will target them and their land even though race is not mentioned in the law.

The law is tied to the legacy of the racist apartheid system, and colonialism before that, and is part of South Africa’s efforts over decades to try and find a way to right historic wrongs.

Under apartheid, Black people had land taken away from them and were forced to live in designated areas for non-whites. Now, whites make up around seven per cent of South Africa’s population of 62 million but own approximately 70 per cent of the private farming land, and the government says that inequality needs to be addressed.

Who are Afrikaners?

Afrikaners are a group of white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers who arrived around 370 years ago. They speak Afrikaans, one of South Africa’s 11 official languages, and make up many of South Africa’s rural farming communities.

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid regime, and tensions between some Afrikaner groups and Black political parties have lingered after apartheid, although South Africa has largely been successful in reconciling its many racial groups and most Afrikaners consider themselves part of the new South Africa.

Some examples of Afrikaners who gained international prominence include EFC fighter Dricus du Plessis, golfers Ernie Els and Louis Oosthuizen, and actor Charlize Theron.

Trump’s executive order addresses serious human rights violations in South Africa, according to his administration, and says the South African government has allowed violent attacks on Afrikaner farmers and their families. Trump said the U.S. will establish a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.

How is Elon Musk involved?

The Tesla billionaire and Trump ally was born and raised in South Africa but left after high school in the late 1980s, when South Africa was still under the apartheid regime.

He has for years criticized the current leadership in his homeland, accusing them of anti-white policies and ignoring or even encouraging a “genocide” with regards to the killings of some white farmers. Those killings are at the center of claims by conservative commentators — and now amplified by Trump and Musk — that South Africa is allowing attacks on white farmers as a means to remove them.

The South African government has condemned the killings and says they are part of the country’s desperately high violent crime rates across the board. Experts say there is no evidence of genocide and the killings make up a very small percentage of homicides. For example, a group that records farm attacks says 49 farmers or their families were killed in 2023, while there were more than 27,000 homicides in the country that year.

Musk also accused South Africa this week of having “racist ownership laws,” an apparent reference to his failure to get a license in the country for his Starlink satellite internet service because it doesn’t meet affirmative action criteria.

What does Trump’s order do?

Trump’s order stops hundreds of millions of dollars a year the U.S. gives South Africa, most of it to help its HIV/AIDS response. The U.S. gave South Africa around US$440 million last year and funds 17 per cent of South Africa’s HIV program through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Parts of that funding had already been threatened by Trump’s global aid freeze, but it will now all be stopped in a major blow to South Africa’s health sector. South Africa has around eight million people living with HIV — with 5.5 million of them receiving antiretroviral medication — and U.S. funding is vital in supporting the largest national HIV/AIDS program in the world.

The executive order also said South Africa had taken an anti-American stance — even “led the charge” — on many issues, accusing it of supporting Hamas, Russia and Iran, and being too close to China’s ruling Communist Party.

South Africa has long been a supporter of Palestinians and a critic of Israel and has maintained close ties to Russia because of its help in fighting apartheid. Trump’s order appears to require a significant shift in South Africa’s foreign policy to allow the aid to start again.

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Gerald Imray, The Associated Press