President Trump signed an executive order Friday freezing aid to South Africa over a “shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights.”
The stopping of aid and assistance comes after South Africa passed a law that allows the government to take the land of some of the country’s citizens and which Mr. Trump says is discrimination against the country’s White minority Afrikaners.
“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,” the executive order says.
“In addition, South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military and nuclear arrangements,” it says.
The law, signed last month by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, aims to address the discrimination against Black residents during the country’s apartheid era, when land was taken from them. The measure allows the government to take land in the public interest.
The order also calls on the secretaries of state and homeland security to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” for Afrikaners who want to leave South Africa because of “unjust racial discrimination.”
Mr. Trump railed against the law in a Truth Social post last week, saying South Africa is treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”
“It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention. A massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see,” he said. “The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
The aid freeze on South Africa comes as part of a broader Trump plan to switch the United States to an “America First” foreign policy as outlined in an executive order he signed on his first day in office.
Mr. Ramaphosa hit back at Mr. Trump’s claims, saying the government “has not confiscated any land.”
“The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the Constitution,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in a statement.
“We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest. We are certain that out of those engagements, we will share a better and common understanding over these matters,” he said.
He noted that South Africa receives aid from the U.S. only from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which provides aid to diagnose and treat AIDS and makes up 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS program.
Funding for PEPFAR comes through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Mr. Trump is gutting.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a limited waiver was granted to the PEPFAR program that allows some of the program’s services to resume, such as life-saving HIV treatment.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.