It has been a few stormy weeks since Donald Trump re-occupied the American Presidency and signed a raft of Executive Orders which cut across security, foreign policy, trade and aid, and human rights regimes that identify several priorities for his administration. In just a few weeks, Trump’s administration ripped up long-standing agreements and norms, and set out a much more hardline and ideologically driven agenda than his first term in office. Partly due to the presence of figures such as South African-born Elon Musk in his administration, this new approach has had profound – and often bizarre – implications for Africa.
The biggest changes to US foreign policy have included a vicious attack on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the foreign aid system in general, restrictive immigration and visa policies that target undocumented migrants and visa restrictions for personnel and their families of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the withdrawal of the United States of America (USA) from UN bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Council of Human Rights and (UNCHR).
There have also been significant changes to how America engages with Africa that are perhaps best illustrated by the changing nature of US-South Africa relations. Following a series of contentious and disputed messages about South African politics from senior figures in the Trump team, South Africa was fully drawn into the turmoil of American post-election politics through the Executive Order, Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa on 7 February 2025.
So why is South Africa so high in the president’s policy agenda, given that he previously branded African states “shithole countries“?
Despite a lack of evidence to back up its assertions, the Trump administration has claimed that the South African government is expropriating White-owned land without compensation, which it considers immoral and a human rights violation that reinforces “countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business.” The U.S. also claims that what it describes as the hateful rhetoric and government actions of the South African government fuel violence against White farmers and landowners. On this basis, the U.S. pledged to not only deny aid to South Africa, but also to go much further, offering refugee protection, humanitarian assistance, and the resettlement of Afrikaners in the USA in order to mitigate this “government-sponsored race-based discrimination.”
This set of statements generated controversy and ridicule around the world, but that did not stop the U.S. from assigning the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate the admission and resettlement initiatives. Approximately 70, 000 White South Africans have reportedly registered their interests in this ‘refugee’ scheme. The United States Embassy in South Africa has even amplified the Executive Orders with a hawkish Fact Sheet: President Donald J Trump Addresses Human Rights Violations in South Africa of its own, highlighting the alleged discrimination against ‘’ethnic minority settler descendants’’ and ‘’innocent disfavoured minority farmers.’’ Moreover, the U.S. has stated that South Africa’s ‘’championing (of) terrorism and autocratic regimes abroad’’ while it commits “similar human rights violations at home” underpins the need by the USA to send a ‘’clear message to the world’s bad actors – and to their victims – by condemning human rights abuses in no uncertain terms.’’
Why is this happening?
The reasons for this bizarre policy shift by the U.S. cannot conceivably lie in the realm of land and domestic politics of South Africa. South Africa’s Expropriation Act No 13 of 2024 is premised upon the revered Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) that allows for land appropriation within a legal framework. Significantly, that framework includes adherence to clearly delineated norms and procedures as well as the compensation of affected White farmers. There has been an insignificant degree of land redistribution to black citizens during the past thirty years and 72% of land remains in white hands. In other words, Trump’s claims represent a bizarre combination of disinformation and half-truths. So what is the true motivation behind his “alternative facts”?
In addition to the complex personal politics of Trump’s most prominent advisor, Elon Musk, the answer probably lies in the leading role that South Africa has played in mobilising global support for Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli settler-colonialism. The Executive Order refers briefly to this, stating that: “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’’ (emphasis added). It states further that: “The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its “undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests” (emphasis added).
This is the nub of the matter. Unfortunately, it usually gets lost in the heated discourse that has ensued over continued racial patterns of land ownership in South Africa.
South Africa and the USA pursue contrasting foreign policies towards the Middle East that are premised upon divergent histories and a pursuit of contrasting strategic interests. South Africa and Palestine share a common experience of colonialism and segregation that has strengthened their bonds of solidarity. Partly as a result, from the presidency of Nelson Mandela onwards, South Africa has consistently championed the cause of freedom for Palestinians. In 1995, for example, it established a Joint Commission of Cooperation with the State of Palestine, and its lawmakers and officials have undertaken several diplomatic visits. Indeed, Mandela famously went as far as to say: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” This positionality has increasingly placed the South African government on a collision course with the Israeli government and its American backers since the escalation of the war in Gaza in October 2023. Most notably, South Africa’s unprecedented application against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 on the basis of the 1951 Genocide Convention was a courageous act that caught the USA and Israel off-guard and exacerbated political tensions.
The stakes of this disagreement increased significantly when, on 19 July 2024, the ICJ ruled that: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is unlawful and must be discontinued, new settlements should be discontinued and settlers be evacuated, and the exploitation of Palestinian resources should be discontinued. Moreover, senior US and Israeli leaders were concerned about the growing number of African states that joined South Africa’s application or became a party to the case – building global momentum against the official Israeli position – which has included Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Namibia, Zimbabwe and the AU itself. In principle, all signatory states to the Genocide Convention are now obliged to arrest Netanyahu and his Cabinet members and hand them over to the Court. Both Israel and the USA are not signatories to the Genocide Convention, which has enabled Netanyahu and his ministers to evade the provisions of the Convention. For example, Netanyahu has visited the USA twice during the past year and met with President Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and also President Trump when he was barely two weeks into his presidency.
The pathway to chaos
The embarrassment factor, however, has not gone away, and senior leaders in both Israel and the U.S. are furious that the illegality and immorality of their actions have been highlighted on a global stage. Trump has responded according to type, throwing outrageous statements at an issue he little understands, whilst generating tremendous uncertainty, instability and unpredictability within the rule-based global order.
In other words, the attack on the reputation of the South African government should not be interpreted as a concern over the fate of White farmers. Rather, it is a carefully calculated attempt to undermine its reputation in order to prevent it from playing a leading role in pro-Palestinian – and anti-international law-breaking – global coalitions.
This is the basis of the Executive Order.
Calls have been mounting for the closure of the Israeli embassy in South Africa, a site of many protests over many years. The decision by the Johannesburg City Council during November 2018 to rename the prominent Sandston drive, on which the American Consulate is situated, after Palestinian activist Leila Khaled who is renowned for her plane hijackings during the 1960s/1970s in furtherance of the Palestinian course, has been put on hold in view of the diplomatic ructions. The US government has responded through its expulsion of South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool for his incendiary remarks about the racial politics of the Trump administration. In reality, this merely feeds into the diplomatic impasse over Israel.
Political tension will likely exacerbate, and relations between these three actors and their supporters will sour in the following months.
Graham Burton JOSEPH is a PhD Politics and International Studies candidate at SOAS, University of London.
