What to know about Trump’s problem with South Africa

“We will not be intimidated,” said the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, said the Parliament of his nation on Thursday.

“We are witnessing the emergence of nationalism, protectionism, the search for close interests and the decline of the common cause,” Ramaphosa said during his Directorate of the State of the Nation. “But we are not intimidated to navigate our path through this world that constantly changes. We will not dissuade. We are, like South Africans, a resistant people. “

Although he did not mention any stalker by his name, Ramaphosa’s comments occurred a few days after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened to reduce all funds to South Africa, alluding to the long -term false narrative that the White South Africans are being mistreated by the Post-Apartheid of the Nation. government.

Trump and his allies, particularly billionaire born in South Africa ELON ALMIZCLEThey have increased their rhetoric against South Africa in an apparent reaction to the recently approved expropriation law of 2024, a controversial law aimed at solving the problem of inequality owned by the land of long data in the country. The law has generated criticism for allegedly risking and ignoring private property rights, particularly those of the Blanca minority of South Africa, since it allows land seizures by the State without compensation.

Trump has put in a similar way “Anti-Blanco“Policies in the United States in the sight of its new administration, taking energetic measures Diversity, equity and initiatives related to inclusion (DEI) throughout the federal government and the private sector.

This is what you should know about Trump’s problems with South Africa.

What Trump and his allies have said about South Africa

February 2, Trump announced In its social media site, social truth that South Africa has been “confiscating land and treating certain kinds of people very bad.” Then he said that “it will cut all future funds to South Africa until a complete investigation of this situation has been completed.” The later He said to journalists That the “leadership of South Africa is doing some terrible things, horrible things.”

It is not the first time that Trump makes such statements: in 2018, during his first term, Trump saying He had ordered the then Secretary of the State Mike Pompeo to investigate the seizures of the Earth and the murders of White Farmers in South Africa.

These comments echo a long data false narrative Pushed by right groups in South Africa that whites are being dispossessed of their lands and are even victims of genocide.

Musk, who was born in the Pretoria of South Africa, has repeated the myth in multiple publications in X over the years, including one in 2023 accusing the South Africans of the left “pressing openly for the genocide of the whites” and another the same year Saying “they are actually killing White farmers every day. It’s not just a threat.”

Ramaphosa rejected Trump’s claims, arguing in a position in x On February 3 that the government “has not confiscated any land.” The South African president said that the new expropriation law “is not an instrument of confiscation”, but a legal process that “guarantees public access to land in a fair and fair way.”

The musk replied in xasking: “Why do you have openly racist property laws?” The South African government then saying Ramaphosa spoke with Musk on the phone to dissipate “erroneous information.”

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio published in x On Wednesday, he will not attend the G20 summit at the end of this year in Johannesburg, claiming that the South Africa host is “doing very bad things.” Expropriating private property. “Rubio suggested that visiting South Africa would” waste taxpayers’ money and “encode anti -Americanism.”

What is the 2024 expropriation law?

He 2024 expropriation law It is the last agrarian reform policy of South Africa aimed at solving the problems of property inequality created by the apartheid system of the white minorities rule prior to 1994. Ramaphosa settled the law on January 23 after five years of consultation public and parliamentary debate.

According to him governmentThe law “describes how expropriation can be done and on what basis.” The law allows the government to take land or “for a public purpose or in public interest.”

The law Mandates Generally “fair and equitable” compensation, but a clause establishes that the government may not provide compensation in certain cases, even when the land is not in use and the main objective is the appreciation of the market value, or when the land has been abandoned

Low The lawAn expropriated authority, a state or person organized by him or any other legislation, must first have tried to reach an agreement with the owner of the Earth or the head of the Earth to acquire the property “in reasonable terms”. However, a property can be used temporarily without the need to reach an agreement if “it is urgently required for public purposes or public interest.”

In the weeks since the legislation has entered into force, land has not yet been expropriated.

A history of land ownership inequality in South Africa

Despite the official purpose of Apartheid in 1994, South Africa is still recovering from generalized racial inequality in land ownership.

A 1913 law forcefully eliminated thousands of black families from the land they possessed, which limited the property of the African land to 7%, then reviewed 13% in 1936. These installments allowed white people to largely possess large stripes of land, while most black to most black municipalities full of people.

Land measures based on racially were repealed in 1991but, according Economists Johann Kirsten and Wandile Sihlobo from the University of Stellenbosch, white farmers had about 63% of the land: “The new government (after apartheid) established a goal of redistributing 30% of this within five years. This objective date has moved several times and now is 2030, “they wrote in 2022. But progress has been challenging.

According A Terrestrial Audit of 2017White, which were composed 8% Of the population, it had about three quarters of farms and agricultural holdings, while black South Africans only had 4%. The defenders of the Expropriation Law say that this is because, until the new law, the Government could only buy land for redistribution to the black owners under a model of “seller arranged and buyer arranged”, while large quantities White lands remained without using.

How has the 2024 expropriation law been received in South Africa?

The 2024 expropriation law was approved before South Africa remained National elections last year in which the ruling Anc party lost its majority for the first time since it came to power after the device. While there are scarce of public surveys on the subject, the Democratic AllianceThe second largest party in South Africa National Unit Government (GNU), has opposed the law, saying that “erroneously allows null compensation in the public interest within the limited scope of agrarian reform and reparation, but ignores the public interest in economic growth and jobs.” The Freedom Front Plus, a white right -wing party also a member of the GNU, saying It will challenge the constitutionality of the law, since not only “raises serious risks” for the property rights of South Africa, but also sends “an extremely negative message to the international community” since “investors will not be easily persuaded to invest in A country where its property could be expropriated. “