US President Donald Trump signed an executive order cutting financial aid to South Africa, accusing its government of practicing “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaners. The Friday order also offers asylum to Afrikaners in the United States and criticized the land expropriation law recently passed by South Africa’s parliament.
The move follows by a month since South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law provisions for expropriation without compensation in certain cases. The order claims South Africa has enacted “countless government policies” that have limited equal opportunity for employment, education, and business. It also alleged that the South African government encourages anti-US and anti-Israel positions, in particular as regards Palestine, at the International Court of Justice and its expanding relations with Iran. Elon Musk, a South African-born billionaire who has sided with Trump on his cost-cutting program, has publicly attacked South Africa’s affirmative action policies as “openly racist.”.
South Africa’s foreign ministry reacted by decried as a “campaign of misinformation and propaganda” what it called such an action. It said that while it may seem ironic for South Africa to grant asylum to one of its richest groups as the US continues deporting vulnerable refugees from other nations.
Conservative Afrikaner organizations, for instance, Afriforum, welcomed an intervention by Trump but expressed concern over the potential economic implications. The step might jeopardize South Africa’s position in AGOA, which allows South African goods tariff-free access into the US market.
According to Kallie Kriel, CEO of the Afriforum, “it’s a crisis. This man made the ruling ANC escalate their menaces.” He further said that “the Afrikaner believe themselves indigenous to South Africa with no thought of leaving”.
