The president falsely claimed on social media that the South African government was confiscating farmland, echoing previous claims that the country mistreats white people.
President Trump said in a social media post Friday that the United States would immediately begin offering South African farmers a fast track to citizenship, falsely claiming that the South African government had confiscated their land “and is doing WAY WORSE.”
The post echoes much of what Mr Trump has said about South Africa in the past, including in an order last month in which he suspended all American aid to the country and offered refugee status to Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority.
In January, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law that would allow the government to seize land for the public good without compensation; shortly after, Mr Trump began criticizing the South African government. Elon Musk, who is from South Africa, backed up the president’s comments with his own social media posts accusing the government of having blatantly racist laws.
“This is a bad place right now,” Mr Trump wrote of South Africa on Friday.
His post comes as the South African government is preparing a trade deal to offer Mr Trump, hoping it will ease tensions, prevent further punitive action and persuade him to maintain close ties with South Africa. Mr Ramaphosa has previously said Mr Trump is spreading disinformation and that he is looking forward to meeting the US president to set the record straight.
“We will not engage in counterproductive megaphone diplomacy,” Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for Mr Ramaphosa, said in response to the post on Friday. “We remain committed to building a mutually beneficial bilateral trade, political and diplomatic relationship with the United States. Clearly, this must be a relationship based on mutual respect and respect for our independence and sovereignty.”
Mr. Trump’s post on Friday departed from his order in one important way. The order specifically offered refuge to Afrikaners, the descendants of the European colonialists who ran the apartheid regime. But his post said farmers could flee to the United States. While most large-scale commercial farmers in South Africa are white, most farmers overall are black, and many produce food to feed themselves and their families.
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump will grant refugee status and fast-track citizenship to black farmers. Since returning to office in January, Mr. Trump has made combating the influx of refugees into the United States a priority.
Some conservative Afrikaners have sought to capitalize on Mr. Trump’s support. A delegation of them met with White House officials in Washington last week, asking for U.S. funding to help them build their own communities. They also asked the United States to pressure the South African government to repeal laws designed to address inequalities created under apartheid that they say discriminate against white people.
Many Afrikaner activists said they would rather live in a better South Africa than flee to the United States.
John Eligon is The Times's Johannesburg bureau chief, covering a wide range of events and trends that affect and shape the lives of ordinary people across South Africa. More about John Eligon
For more information, see: Elon Musk, Cyril Ramaphosa, Donald Trump
