AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The president signed an executive order criticizing South Africa’s 2024 Expropriation Act, which allows the government to take land “for a public purpose” or “in the public interest” in exchange for “just and equitable compensation.” South African officials have likened the law to eminent domain in the U.S.
About 70% of all farmland in South Africans is owned by members of the country’s White minority. The country has yet to expropriate any land under the law.
“In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation,” Trump’s order stated, using a term for White South Africans. “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.”
Trump also cited South Africa’s role in bringing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, where it accused Israel of “genocidal intent” in its war in Gaza. He said the U.S. ” shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa” and “shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.”
Notably, the president made loud and clear that the U.S. will welcome South Africans of European descent to the country, if they wish to come.
“The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take appropriate steps, consistent with law, to prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” he wrote. “Such plan shall be submitted to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor.”
Elon Musk, who is one of Trump’s closest advisers, is himself a White South African and immigrated to the U.S. by way of Canada to avoid military service in his native country.