Trump accuses South Africa of land grabbing and cuts funding
US President Donald Trump on Sunday accused South Africa of taking away land and treating certain groups of people very badly, announcing that he would cut off any future funding to the country pending an investigation.
In January, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa passed a law that allows the government, under certain circumstances, to expropriate land for the public good without providing any compensation at all.
The land issue in South Africa is divisive, with efforts to address inequality inherited from apartheid drawing criticism from conservatives, notably Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire who is one of Trump’s closest advisers.
“South Africa is taking land and treating certain groups of people very badly… I’ll cut off all future funding to South Africa until this situation is fully investigated,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social.
Pretoria maintains that the law doesn’t allow the government to arbitrarily seize property, and that it must first seek an agreement with the owner.
However, some groups fear a situation similar to that in neighboring Zimbabwe when the government confiscated white-owned commercial farms, often without compensation, after independence in 1980.
Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa, where most agricultural land remains owned by whites three decades after the end of apartheid.
