President moves to calm US tantrum

• Trump vows to cut funding for SA, citing the country’s land policies

US President Donald Trump plans to cut funding to SA, citing the country’s land expropriation laws, reigniting fears that trade relations between the two countries are under threat, wading into internal affairs and launching Pretoria into a swift rejection.

“I will be cutting off all future funding to SA until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” Trump said without providing evidence in a post on social media platform X on Sunday.

Trump, who has staked his second-term presidency on an “America First” policy, has already sent ripples around the world, imposing tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, and issuing executive orders putting a 90-day freeze on new foreign aid to review alignment with his administration’s agenda.

Trump, who has a track record of following through on some of his threats, added that SA’s legislation permitted the SA government to confiscate land “unfairly” and that certain classes of people were being treated “very badly”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and international relations & cooperations minister Ronald Lamola were quick to hit back, rejecting Trump’s baseless claims that land would be confiscated by the state.

“SA is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The SA government has not confiscated any land,” Ramaphosa said in a statement. “SA, like the USA and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners.”

Lamola echoed these comments, adding that he welcomed Trump’s investigation into policy. “We trust President Trump s advisers will make use of the’ investigative period to attain a thorough understanding of SA’s policies within the framework of a constitutional democracy,” he said.

Trump’s social media post comes days after NGOs supported by the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aid Relief (Pepfar) were left in the lurch, waiting for formal guidance on how to implement the limited waiver granted to Trump’s administration’s freeze on foreign aid.

Ramaphosa added that US funding to SA was limited to Pepfar, which accounts for 17% of the country’s HIV/Aids programme, and has disbursed more than $110bn to the countries worst affected by HIV/Aids, including SA, over the past 20plus years.

Trump’s post about SA’s land reform policy unleashed a whirlwind of reaction in the foreign exchange market, sending the rand falling almost 2% before recouping virtually all the

losses to trade flat in late afternoon deals.

TreasuryOne director Andre Cilliers said recent US actions, including tariffs on Mexico and Canada, had led to a weakening of emerging-market currencies, including the rand.

He said a key concern was the US’s scrutiny of SA’s land expropriation policies. Cilliers said that that had placed SA in the international spotlight, which could have serious consequences for its trade relationship with the US, one of its largest economic partners.

Sometimes you want to fly under the radar and not directly into the spotlight. But that is what we have done now. We are under the spotlight. We are under investigation,” he said.

SA’s land policies, including the recently signed Expropriation Act, and the government’s push to address apartheid-era land ownership patterns have long been a divisive matter. It has drawn criticism from the DA, lobby groups such as AfriForum and Solidarity and, most recently, Trump’s adviser Elon Musk, who was born in SA.

Solidarity, a trade union, said in a statement that Trump had been briefed last week on “minority rights” in SA leading to the announcement on Sunday.

“Advisers in the White House are also currently encouraging Trump to take a stand on minority rights in SA... Trump has been fully briefed on this by his Africa advisers over the past few days,” Solidarity said without naming its advisers. Afrikaner civil rights group AfriForum, which shares a common goal with Solidarity for the rights of minority groups, said it would lobby the Trump administration to only sanction ANC leaders.

AGOA

The ANC issued a strong condemnation of broader Solidarity movement actions and positions, portraying it as an organisation that is out of step with SA’s transformative goals and potentially harmful to the country’s sovereignty.

“AfriForum has long positioned itself as a defender of white minority privilege, using fearmongering to undermine SA’s constitutional and lawful land reform programme... It is unacceptable that AfriForum continues to seek external intervention against a sovereign country’s domestic policies,” the ANC said in a statement.

SA’s preferential access to US markets under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) and $440m in foreign aid from the US is under threat should Trump make good on his declaration that he will cut off funding to SA, according to the SA Chamber of Commerce in the USA (Saccusa).

SA has retained its status as an Agoa beneficiary for this year. For SA, retaining its status as a beneficiary is crucial as Agoa provides preferential access for about 20% of the country’s exports to the US, or 2% of its shipments globally.

In 2024, SA exported $6.5bn worth of goods under Agoa, Saccusa said, signalling the importance of trade relations between the two economies.

The next hurdle for SA and other African beneficiaries of Agoa that have been lobbying for a renewal of the trade agreement is to ensure that it is renewed for at least another 10 years before its expiry in September 2025.

“Any deterioration in relations ... involving economic assistance and trade agreements could have widespread implications for both SA and American businesses,” Saccusa said.

“The US previously obligated nearly $440m in assistance to SA in 2024, supporting various economic, healthcare and social initiatives. Any withdrawal of this support, along with threats to review trade agreements such as Agoa, could significantly impact critical sectors and communities reliant on these partnerships.”