WeeklySA_AdminPREFERRENTIAL: In contrast, Trump imposes limitations on refugees from countries such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo…
By Natalia Marques
A group of 49 white South Africans travelled from Johannesburg to Washington, DC on Monday, on a US-funded charter flight after US President Trump signed an executive order granting Afrikaners refugee status.
The order, titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa,” labelled South Africa’s land reform attempts as a “shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights,” denouncing the recently-enacted Expropriation Act as part of “countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fuelling disproportionate violence against racially disfavoured landowners.”
When Trump was asked by reporters about the reasoning behind granting Afrikaners refugee status on Monday, the President replied, “It’s a genocide that’s taking place, and you people don’t want to write about it. It’s a terrible thing that’s taking place, and the farmers are being killed; they happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me, but white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.” The executive order also halts foreign aid or assistance delivered or provided to South Africa on the basis of the Expropriation Act and also stemming from South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. The executive order claims that South Africa has “taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies” by “accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice.”
The granting of refugee status to white South Africans of the Afrikaner population comes after Trump has cracked down on immigration in various forms including by suspending refugee resettlement for virtually all refugees of other countries, including conflict-ridden areas such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Trump also suspended asylum through the US-Mexico border almost immediately upon taking office. While halting the flow of refugees from these areas, the Trump administration continues to plunder their resources, including pursuing deals that entail controlling the mineral wealth of the Congo.
Central to this latest move by the Trump administration are the land reform efforts of post-apartheid South Africa. South Africa’s Expropriation Act, enacted on January 23, 2025, has provoked debate both within and outside the country, principally for introducing the possibility of expropriating land from the mostly-white landowners of the country without compensation.
This piece of legislation is rooted in an attempt to rectify the systematic dispossession of Black South Africans during both the apartheid era and colonialism. Despite apartheid formally ending in 1994, the 2017 Land Audit Report by the South African government found that white South Africans, who make up 7.3% of the population, own 72% of farms or agricultural holdings, while Black South Africans, constituting 81.4% of the population, own only 4% of the land. The Expropriation Act can be seen in the larger context of the political struggle seeking justice for past injustices against the Black African population, beginning with colonial conquest during the country’s founding.
“The issue of compensation versus expropriation without compensation has been a contentious topic in South Africa in recent decades,” writes Jonis Ghedi Alasow, who coordinates Pan Africanism Today. “At its core, this debate concerns whether the principle of private property should remain sacrosanct or whether setting it aside in the national interest is appropriate.”
According to Alasow, another significant theme of debate is the “periodization of land dispossession” in the country, with some arguing that land reform projects should focus on the era between the 1913 (when the Natives Land Act proletarianised the African population through mass expropriation of land) and 1994, or aim to right the historic dispossession of land from Indigenous Black South Africans beginning with the first colonial settlements in the region that “initiated a time of genocide, land dispossession, and slavery that served as the foundation for colonial expansion in the decades and centuries that followed.”
Ultra-rich and influential figures with strong ties to South Africa, play key advisory roles in Trump’s own administration. This includes major Trump financial backer Peter Thiel and world’s richest man Elon Musk, both of whom spent significant time in South Africa during the apartheid era. Musk was born and grew up in South Africa, and later lived in Canada and the United States, where he met Thiel who had spent years of his childhood in South Africa and Namibia.
Musk has become notorious for his role in US government leadership, launching attacks on social programs and federal workers via his leadership of Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative. Musk has also has used his vast influence to promote the narrative of so-called white genocide in South Africa.
“Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide,” Musk wrote in a post on X in March. “A month ago, the South African government passed a law legalising taking property from white people at will with no payment. Where is the outrage? Why is there no coverage by the legacy media?” – People’s Despatch
