South Africa Land Reform Law Provokes Trump

February 24th, 2025

Azzy Xiang

President Cyral Ramaphosa of South Africa signed the Expropriation Act No 13 in January, which attempts to solve for land inequalities based on White supremacy, since only 4% of privately-held land is actually owned by Black South Africans when they make up almost 80% of the population. The new act allows South Africa to expropriate land in various circumstances for the public interest, sometimes even without compensation if the land wasn't used productively.

However, domestically within South Africa, the centrist party in the African National Congress claims the act is unconstitutional despite its attempts to push back against injustices and how the laws reflect those of other countries, like the United States, balancing both property rights and public use of land. The law counters a long history of perpetuated segregation and injustice under apartheid, where racial discrimination was prominent and Black South Africans were restricted from renting or buying land, being evicted and removed in the masses throughout the 1900s while Whites were given privileges.

Donald Trump openly opposed this reform policy, accusing the country of targeting certain classes of people, while Elon Musk—despite his South African-born heritage—also dubbed the ownership laws as racist, although President Ramaphosa denied that the policy would target White landowners. Labeling the law as a human rights violation against White farmers, he signed an executive order stopping financial aid to the country for this reason, in addition to its International Court of Justice (ICJ) case that accused Israel of genocide. Moreover, Trump is also threatening withdrawing funding to the world's largest HIV treatment program due to the law, because of how he deems the confiscation of land with no compensation in some cases as unfair to Whites, when it is a check on the former South African apartheid system that denied full citizenship rights to Black people until the 1990s.