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South Africa hits back at Trump’s claim that it is ‘confiscating land,’ as US aid to country threatened
JOHANNESBURG – President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to cut off all foreign aid to South Africa because he claimed it is «confiscating» land «and treating certain classes of people very badly» in «a massive human rights violation» has provoked strong reaction from the South African presidency and commentators.
«The South African government has not confiscated any land», South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responded in a statement, adding «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».
Last week, Ramaphosa signed a bill into law permitting national, provincial and local authorities to expropriate land – to take it -«for a public purpose or in the public interest,» and, the government stated «subject to just and equitable compensation being paid». However, sources say no expropriation has happened yet.
SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL LAND SEIZURE BILL, ERODING PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS
South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has criticized South Africa’s new land laws. (Evan Vucci/AP/RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images)
On his Truth Social Media platform, President Trump hit out at South Africa, posting «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. 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!» Trump later repeated his comments while speaking to the press on Sunday night at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
Pieter du Toit, assistant editor of South African media group News 24, posted on X «The U.S. President, clearly advised by Elon Musk, really has no idea what he’s talking about.»
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – MAY 25: President of the African National Congress (ANC) and South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa speaks to supporters during the ANC Siyanqoba Rally held at FNB Stadium on May 25, 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
South African-born Musk is trying to expand his Starlink internet service into South Africa, but President Ramaphosa has reportedly told him he must sell off 30% of his company here to local broad-based so-called Black empowerment interests.
In response to the South African president’s statement, Musk fired back on X, asking Ramaphosa, «Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?»
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Analyst Frans Cronje told Fox News Digital that President Trump may be referring to the ongoing killing of farmers in South Africa when he posted that certain classes of people are being treated very badly.
«President Trump’s recent comments on land seizures in South Africa cannot be divorced from his past comments on violent attacks directed at the country’s farmers. Whilst these comments have often been dismissed as false, the latest South African data suggests that the country’s commercial farmers are six times more likely to be violently attacked in their homes than is the case for the general population.»
Cronje said there may be agendas in play behind President Trump’s statements.
«Such seizures may also apply to the property of American investors in South Africa. Cronje is an adviser at the U.S. Yorktown Foundation for Freedom. He added «with regards to land specifically, the legislation could enable the mass seizure of land which has been an oft expressed objective of senior political figures in the country. To date, however, there have been no mass seizures, in part because there was no legislative means through which to achieve such seizures.»
Farmers inspect show sheep at the Philippolis Show in Philippolis, South Africa, on Nov. 1, 2024. (Photo by PAUL BOTES/AFP via Getty Images)
Now, with the bill having been signed into law, Cronje says that has changed.
«The comments around property rights in South Africa must be read against broader and bipartisan US concern at developments in South Africa. In 2024 the US/South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act was introduced (in Congress) amid concerns that the South African government’s relationships with Iran, Russia, and China threatened US national security interests.»
Cronje, who also advises corporations and government departments on economic and political trajectory, continued. «Last week, South Africa’s government, together with that of Cuba, Belize and four other countries supported the formation of the ‘Hague Group’ in an apparent move to shore up the standing of the International Criminal Court, amid the passage through Congress of the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act that prescribes sanctions against any country that is seen to use the court to threaten US national security interests. South Africa has in recent years been prominent in employing both that court and the International Court of Justice in the Hague to press for action against Israel and Israeli leaders.»
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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a family photo during the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 23, 2024. (ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
South Africa’s Ramaphosa played down the importance of U.S. aid, stating «with the exception of PEPFAR (The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) Aid, which constitutes 17% of South Africa’s HIVAids program, there is no other significant funding that is provided by the United States in South Africa.» President George W. Bush introduced PEPFAR in 2003.
Analyst Justice Malala, speaking on South African news channel, ENCA, said that, under the Trump administration, «the United States is going to upend South Africa in many ways.»
Ukraine on Tuesday agreed to a preliminary proposal put forward by the Trump administration that called for a 30-day ceasefire contingent on Russia’s acceptance of the terms in a major step toward ending the brutal war.
But even if the Trump administration is able to get Moscow to the negotiating table and end the three-year war under a new treaty, which several security experts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is under no real pressure to do, can the Kremlin chief be trusted?
Russia under Putin has repeatedly violated formal international agreements intended to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty, chiefly from its former Soviet overlord.
From left, U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Ukrainian Head of Presidential Office Andriy Yermak hold a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)
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These agreements include the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal in exchange for assurances over its territorial integrity after its 1991 withdrawal from the Soviet Union, as well as the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership by which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to respect one another’s existing borders. Both deals were first violated in 2014 when Putin seized Crimea and backed Russian separatist forces in the Donbas region.
The 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements, though criticized as «weak,» attempted to end Russia’s aggression in eastern Ukraine, an agreement that was never fully achieved and was again violated by Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Some world leaders and security officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have cautioned that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to be achieved in the near term and against Putin’s reliability in adhering to any international agreement without serious security commitments from the West.
«The problem here is that the Russians only understand win-lose outcomes, which means that to prevent them from ever attacking Ukraine again, they must see themselves to be the losers in the war just as they did at the end of the Cold War,» Michael Ryan, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy and former acting assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, told Fox News Digital.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, May 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Libkos)
Security officials interviewed by Fox News Digital argued that securing Ukraine’s future is not about «trusting» Putin. It’s about actually putting Russia in a position where any future violations would hinder Moscow more than it could be enticed by unchecked opportunity.
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«Even if a deal is concluded, Russia will continue clandestine operations across the world to expand its footprint in terms of geopolitical influence,» Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer, told Fox News Digital, noting the former KGB operative can be counted on to «continue election interference campaigns, cyber warfare, espionage and destabilization operations across the globe.
«There’s no such thing as peace in Russia’s strategic military thinking. You are in a constant confrontation.»
Ryan argued a Trump-brokered peace deal needs to reflect on the lessons learned from previously failed agreements, like the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles, which arguably led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
«How to solve this conundrum? Just as we did after World War II … reconstruction of Ukraine must include economic reconciliation with Russia,» Ryan said. «The Russians saw how we rebuilt the losing side in World War II Germany and Japan. They expected us to do the same for Russia after the Cold War, but we did not.
«We can’t make that same mistake if we want lasting peace for Ukraine and if we want to split Russia from China,» he added, noting other adversaries are watching how the West handles this geopolitical hurdle.
Ukrainian soldiers of the Aidar battalion training at an undetermined location in Donetsk oblast, 4 April 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
There are numerous obstacles when it comes to the Trump administration’s attempt to negotiate with Putin, including arguments over occupied territory, international recognition of occupied lands, international aid and support for Ukraine, international confiscation of frozen Russian assets, Zelenskyy’s standing at home, the return of prisoners of war and the return of abducted Ukrainian children, according to Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute.
«Putin has officially annexed four Ukrainian oblasts as well as Crimea. But Moscow has yet to conquer any of the four entirely,» Rough told Fox News Digital while traveling to Ukraine. «I can’t imagine that Ukraine will withdraw from the areas they control, having fought tooth and nail to defend those regions.
«I also doubt that the West will offer de jure recognition to the areas Moscow controls,» he added. «So, Putin would have to swallow all of that in a peace deal.»
Each issue alone is a massive undertaking to negotiate, and while Ukraine this week may be outlining concessions it could make to secure a deal coordinated by the U.S., Putin is unlikely to do the same, according to Koffler, who briefed NATO years ahead of the 2022 invasion on Putin’s plans.
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«Putin is unlikely to make any concessions as he believes he is in a strong position,» Koffler told Fox News Digital. «The disparity in combat potential dramatically favors Russia over Ukraine, which is out-manned and outgunned because Putin transitioned the Russian military and economy on a wartime footing seven years prior to the invasion of Ukraine.»
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the draft of a 2024 federal budget and the planning period of 2025 and 2026, via video link at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 18, 2023 (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
«Putin believes he has prepared Russia to fight till the last Ukrainian and till the last missile in NATO’s arsenal,» she added, echoing a January warning issued by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who said Russia’s defense industry output over a three-month period equates to what all of NATO produces an entire year.
«Putin is highly unlikely to agree to a ceasefire because he doesn’t want to give a strategic pause to Ukraine, the U.S., and NATO to re-arm,» Koffler said. «He doesn’t trust Washington. He doesn’t trust President Trump any more than we trust Putin.
«He trusts Trump even less than Biden because he could read Biden and predict his behavior. He cannot read Trump because Trump is unpredictable.»
The experts argued there are too many variables that could play out during negotiations that will determine whether Putin can be adequately held accountable or «trusted» regarding future agreements.
Ukrainian soldiers work with «pion» artillery in the northern direction of the Donbass front line as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in Donetsk, Ukraine, Jan. 7, 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Ultimately, Koffler said, Putin will not leave eastern Ukraine.
«Ukraine has always been a red line for Putin, in terms of who has geopolitical control of it, Russia or the West. And he will continue to enforce this red line,» she said. «The only way to ensure that Putin doesn’t invade another country is to make NATO strong again, beef up force posture, increase defense spending, secure its command-and-control networks and develop actual deterrence and counter-strategy that addresses every prong of Putin’s strategy.»
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