This is a quarrel that is being transformed into a real diplomatic crisis. After Mexico, Canada, Panama and Greenland, the United States of Donald Trump now attack South Africa head on. Taking the pretext of a law on expropriation which he deems discriminatory against the white minority, the American president thus signed this Friday a decree freeing all aid to Pretoria, arousing strong reactions in the country and with its leaders.
The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was in a statement “very concerned” by “the basic postulate of this decree” which “lacks factual accuracy and does not recognize the deep and painful history of Africa from the south in matters of colonialism and apartheid “, while the South African presidency has refuted in recent days any intention to” confiscate land “.
The vast majority of land remain detained in South Africa by the white minority, a legacy of a policy of expropriation of the black population during apartheid – which ended about thirty years ago – and before, during colonization. “We are concerned about what seems to be a campaign of disinformation and propaganda aimed at distorting our great nation,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “It is disappointing to note that such stories seem to have the favor of decision-makers of the United States of America,” he added.
Washington says he is ready to welcome “innocent victims”
Pretoria judges particularly “ironic” that the American decree provides “the granting of refugee status in the United States to a group of South Africans who is among the most privileged economic” while at the same time “of people Vulnerable from other regions of the world are expelled in the United States and are denied asylum despite real difficulties. “
The American decree specifically promises to assist “the Afrikaner ethnic minority”, descendant of the first European settlers, including by offering them the status of refugees, considering the recent South African law on discriminatory expropriation towards them. This law “will allow the government to seize the agricultural properties of the ethnic minority of Afrikaners without compensation”, denounced Donald Trump this Friday in his decree ordering the frost of any funding, as long as the South African government continues “its unjust practices and immoral “.
This Saturday, the spokesperson for American diplomacy also announced that the United States was ready to welcome “persecuted South African farmers and other innocent victims targeted only because of their race”.
“Afrikaners or Amerikaners?”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, during his annual speech to the nation, that his country would not be “intimidated” by American measures. In the opinion of most lawyers, the law promulgated in January clarifies the legal framework for expropriations, without novelty on the merits. But it crystallizes the fears of a small part of the white minority. The text allows the South African government, as a general interest, to decide on expropriations without compensation in certain exceptional circumstances where it would be “fair and fair”, without further details.
For several days on social networks, many South Africans of all skin colors have been indignant or mocked American positions. “Should we now call them amerikaners?”, Ironized this Saturday a black user. “Should we expect wine or reservations” for Safaris “to be evacuated”, joking another, most of them belonging to white families.
This Saturday, the small Afriforum organization, intended to “protect and promote the Afrikaner identity”, thanked the United States for their position, while believing that the place of white South Africans was in their country. Afriforum expressed in a press release its “great satisfaction with Trump and the recognition by the United States of the injustice to which Afrikaners are subject”. But she says she stays “attached to the future of Afrikaners”, who represent only part of the under 7.3 % of white South Africans identified in 2022, “at the southern tip of Africa”.
A crisis that sinks
Many other elements strengthen and risk further climbing tensions between the two countries. Starting with the presence in the team of President Donald Trump of the American billionaire Elon Musk, who grew up in South Africa under apartheid and whose parents were rich Afrikaners, who described the law on expropriations as ” openly racist “. The American sanctions decided against the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Donald Trump accuses of having initiated “baseless” actions against his “close ally” Israel, are also likely to increase tensions. Because Pretoria has placed in the forefront of international efforts to have war in Gaza qualifies as “genocide”.
This Wednesday, the new head of American diplomacy Marco Rubio said that he would not go to Johannesburg for a meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers in February, taxing South Africa, which ensures its rotating presidency this year , “anti-Americanism”. Pretoria, founding member of the BRICS diplomatic block, was also accused by the republican senator Ted Cruz of “doing everything possible to alienate the United States” after asking Taiwan to move his delegation outside his capital Pretoria. Not to mention that Donald Trump threatened to impose customs duties of 100 % on the members of the BRICS to dissuade them from renouncing the dollar in their exchanges. The crisis may just begin.